WIP - The World of Ascadia

[Badger]

OK - I need suggestions!

I have tried a whole bunch of mountain styles, but nothing that I am happy with, that portrays the sense of scale, and fits with the clean land/river style.

This continent is about the size of Australia. Here is a rough comparison based on the information I have:

Any suggestion on how to represent the mountain ranges - again, using B&W only, would be helpful.

Thanks,
-Rob A>

Here some ideas .... just thought I'd throw something up there for you .... was quick and dirty ... but you get the gist

[RobA]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I finally decided to go with something relatively easy to do in Inkscape, using the calligraphy brush. Somewhat symbolic, old school fantasy map...



I still have to add hills, etc and some additional terrain, but this seems to do it without being too cluttered.

-Rob A>

[Steel General]

Lookin' good Rob, great job!

[RobA]

I have decided to take this in a different direction. Things are getting too unwieldy in Inkscape so I have switched over to Gimp.

Here is a (1/2 size) of where I am, with a different mountain and hill style (The water effect is just a placeholder and will be replaced with something more hand-drawn, eventually):


Where I am stuck now is the circled area. The description I am working with is:

Frontier Area:
"with its massive canyons and rocky formations, is rough terrain. Think Grand Canyon/Mesa/Badlands with scattered woods and Texas-like prairie/desert."

I have come up with the following:


but am not 100% sold on it, so suggestions would be appreciated...

Thanks,

-Rob A>

[jfrazierjr]

I have decided to take this in a different direction. Things are getting too unwieldy in Inkscape so I have switched over to Gimp.

Here is a (1/2 size) of where I am, with a different mountain and hill style (The water effect is just a placeholder and will be replaced with something more hand-drawn, eventually):


Where I am stuck now is the circled area. The description I am working with is:
I have come up with the following:


but am not 100% sold on it, so suggestions would be appreciated...

Thanks,

-Rob A>

I think that looks great! How much size wise do you have to play with (in terms of area). I would say make the mesa's on top a bit smaller in total size and make more of them and throw a few more canyons in there. Granted, this is representational scale, but those mesas would be like 150 miles long (or so).


BTW, I rather like your water effect, so I don't think it "has" to change.


GRRRR.. I keep editing posts instead of quoting them!!! Damn these new Mod powers!

[Karro]

I think that looks great! How much size wise do you have to play with (in terms of area). I would say make the mesa's on top a bit smaller in total size and make more of them and throw a few more canyons in there. Granted, this is representational scale, but those mesas would be like 150 miles long (or so).

Agreed. I think it looks good, and that it meshes well with the new mountain style.

[RobA]

Thanks for the suggestion, JR! (or should I just call you Joe?)

I took your advice and enlarged the main plateau a bit... it has to fit between the river systems... I'll go back and try to change out the mesa's on top and make them smaller and more varied, though as you say it is representational...

I also filled in a large forest area using the random density fill script I created...The brush has 12 different shapes, but at this scale they all appear the same... I might have to change that...

Here is a detail of the forest area and the wider plateau...


-Rob A>

[jfrazierjr]

Thanks for the suggestion, JR! (or should I just call you Joe?)

I took your advice and enlarged the main plateau a bit... it has to fit between the river systems... I'll go back and try to change out the mesa's on top and make them smaller and more varied, though as you say it is representational...

I also filled in a large forest area using the random density fill script I created...The brush has 12 different shapes, but at this scale they all appear the same... I might have to change that...

Here is a detail of the forest area and the wider plateau...


-Rob A>

Joe is fine. Or, if your in a rather flippant mood... you can bastardize it to jojo like Del does (it's ok with me....)

I just got to thinking.... IF this one is going to printed out in a book, you may want to view it at the intended size before spending to much time with a lot of detail work. Not sure if you have thought of that (I assume you have) but I bring this up for others who may be following the thread to think of if they also are doing some print work. I have found sometimes that stuff that looks good at zoomed out scale looks like crap zoomed in and visa-versa. And likewise, if its printed at small scale and all your details are lost (or worse bleed together!!!) then you have wasted a lot of time putting the detail work.

Of course, if your mapping for the sake of mapping the large scale version and the print version at print size looks good to... just ignore everything.

It's a shame you cant tell the distinct trees, though they look good anyway. I am almost thinking that having more than 2-3 distinct trees on a small scale print map might detract from the layout as the eyes focus on a pattern of different trees. hmm just thinking out loud. Note, this is not a critisism, but the trees remind me of the pushpins from mapping software applications to mark points of interest...heh...