The Civilized World and Known Parts of the Wild

[Lingon]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like it

I of course exaggerated the time it will take, they are not that time consuming But as Chashio said, the trees will be very small, and then I plan to cover pretty much all the land in the map with them, so it'll be a lot of trees.

Chashio, I'll gladly share it! I haven't decided on the best approach yet, but in the test I did it this way:
1. Over a dry background color, paint a zigzag outline for the forest, with all peaks pointing up and down. I did this with black ink, bit it would probably work just as well to paint it digitally.
2. Extend the peaks in the front and on the sides of the forests with quick, tapering strokes, creating overlapping cones. Paint some more cones inside the forest randomly.
3. Color the forest (I think I used a mix of Viridian Green, Indian Red and a small amount of black, if there are other watercolor users out there), blending the color into the background in the front and sides and keeping a sharp line at the back. With a clean, moist brush, rub out some highlights to make the green less monotone.

I don't think I'll be able to do it this way on the actual map though, as I stupidly used acrylic paint to cover some ink mistakes, and watercolors refuse to cover acrylics. So I'll probably have to use acrylics again for the forests, which would require a different approach, and possibly not blend very well with the rest which is why I'm also considering oils. I'll have to test both methods before foresting the map.

[Chashio]

Cool! Thanks for sharing that. I use acrylics when I'm doing real painting, mostly transparent single pigments... plus an opaque yellow ochre and titanium white. I don't have any green, though... prefer mixing my own. Have you any acrylic gesso on hand? It might work better for covering mistakes. in theory.

[Lingon]

No problem, I'm happy to contribute with something I have some gesso actually, I made a quick test but unfortunately the watercolors dislike that surface even more:

For some reason they behaved a lot better over normal acrylics here than on the map; the line of white beneath the green is hardly visible in the left one… but none of these are suitable to paint watercolors over, I think it's safe to say!

Here are some new forest tests, with acrylics this time. Mixing in some extender give them slightly more watercolor-ish properties, it looks like.


I also colored the cartouche and border.

[Chashio]

It would almost be worth it to put the jawbones on the ground beside the book no, not really, but it's amusing to think about. Very nice cartouche. That and the border definitely brings the map together.

What extender were you using with the acrylics? I always just use water to thin the paint (transparent paints), but I've also not been aiming for exactly watercolor handling properties. The gesso test actually doesn't look horrible in itself... it could maybe find a use for pre-highlighting / half-masking effects, if they were planned for at the start. I may try something like that myself and see how it works. The map is looking good. I do like that third forest best... but you might want to do some testing on top of a darker value... since your map is already darker green in places.

[Diamond]

Beautiful work, Lingon. I'm stumped on how else to say.... I love it!

[Viking]

This is coming along well Lingon!

[Lingon]

@Chashio:
Lol, I have to put the jawbones somewhere! Was planning an animal skull in the lower left corner, but not anymore! *Morbid laughter*
I'm using Folkart's extender. I actually picked it up very recently, was also just using water before. I really like how it works, but I haven't found the perfect mixing proportions yet. I think I'll keep the extender ratio a little lower when painting the forests on the map, because as you say it's a lot darker so the forests will need better coverage.
I actually had the same idea about the gesso! Covering either the water or land in it and then painting watercolors over everything might look pretty good…

@Diamond and Viking:
Thanks guys!


I still haven't begun working on the real forests, but I have found a perfect font. It's called Roman Antique, by Dieter Steffmann (his fonts are free for personal use, here: Dieter Steffmann @ typOasis). I haven't applied any filters to make it blend in yet, but here's what the cartouche looks like with it:


I have a feeling I'll be over-using this font for a little while…

[Diamond]

Yup, that font is awesome; I've used it on quite a few of my maps. And it does look spectacular on yours.

[Lingon]

TREES! Well, their outlines anyway. Still have to color them. But, update!


The fuzziness is awful in places, I know… My scanner is not feeling well, it seems. I hope it's better when the next step is done.

[Chashio]

Oh, this is gonna be good!