Dorrandin, a whole continent for roleplay in writing

[jbgibson]

Yikes ; all one layer could be a pain to recover from. I bet you're already loving working on separate layers, eh?

I dont know if this is much better - there is maybe some more evenness between differently sourced symbols, but it's at the expense of contrast.

Your southern mountains seem to have some east-west reversal; see how the two biggest peaks are lit from the right, while everything else is lit from the left?

Looking at the mountains I see just a couple in the north with sharp outlines... Have you been resizing these symbols? That'll leave them murkier than the original under most conditions. if you HAVE to resize them, maybe you can draw in thin, dark edges to "resharpen" them. Do you have access to a tablet and pen, or are you drawing lines with a mouse? A digtizer pen would make such enhancement easier.

The desert wastes in the center are going to be tricky to get across to a viewer. One thing they need is for the river layer to go above the wasteland symbol texture. Another bit that might need rethinking - if it is arid, where did that lake come from, and how is it overflowing to start a river?

I guess it does look older than your first parchment rendition, if that's what you want.

[Mornagest]

Yikes ; all one layer could be a pain to recover from. I bet you're already loving working on separate layers, eh?

Indeed. Much easier to correct any stupid thing I could do, or something that doesn't match my wish.

I dont know if this is much better - there is maybe some more evenness between differently sourced symbols, but it's at the expense of contrast.

I tried to make the trees quite transparent, and added a 1px gaussian blur to them, so "normally" they have quite the same style as the hills & mountains.

Your southern mountains seem to have some east-west reversal; see how the two biggest peaks are lit from the right, while everything else is lit from the left?

Argh, didn't notice it ! Thank you !

Looking at the mountains I see just a couple in the north with sharp outlines... Have you been resizing these symbols? That'll leave them murkier than the original under most conditions. if you HAVE to resize them, maybe you can draw in thin, dark edges to "resharpen" them. Do you have access to a tablet and pen, or are you drawing lines with a mouse? A digtizer pen would make such enhancement easier.

No, I didn't resize them ; I chose different mountains to avoid monotonous pattern, but according to the previous point, it seems I didn't pay enough attention to them...

The desert wastes in the center are going to be tricky to get across to a viewer. One thing they need is for the river layer to go above the wasteland symbol texture. Another bit that might need rethinking - if it is arid, where did that lake come from, and how is it overflowing to start a river?

Yes, this is maybe the most difficult for that map : the desert, that is mainly made up of rocks and a bit less of sand (a reg, I think it is called). At my first sketch, I used colours so it was yellowish and so on, but for now I'm still looking for a good pattern that would match my idea.

The hydrology of the continent was even strange before I re-made it (cfr the first map of the topic). I didn't think about that ; it is important that the city called Archik gets a river, AND that there is an oasis in the desert. But I think oasises may exist by a water spring ? Maybe it could stand all alone without a starting river from it...

I guess it does look older than your first parchment rendition, if that's what you want.

Too blur, "dirty", I think, after careful consideration. I thought it would be "as old maps" with a bit of blur, but this is quite eyestraining. I'll keep trying and look for examples of old maps. Or maybe make a non-blur version of this ?



Thank you for your advices, anyway !

[Mornagest]

Well... four years since the last post, not bad !

I spent some time making many other things than cartography, as I just wanted to get this Dorrandin map, and after those trials, I got discouraged and had not much time to spend on this, and I forgot and... and so on.

So, here's a new trial following some tuts I found on the forum, the main of them was Gidde's one. I also "stealed" his brushes because I found it easier to follow his tuto with those brushes that perfectly fit the settings he advises.

This version is obviously a WIP, as I have no border, no scale, there are some labels missing, and some labels are not readable because I didn't remove the landscape under them.

I just wanted to know if there are obvious mistakes I made, to correct them while I'm motivated... and why not, advises for the upcoming stages I still have to realize.

Thank you in advance for your answers !