Earen - A Work In Progress

[Wag]

I felt like your thread deserved a "bump" but I also wanted to interject on just how impressive this map truly is. The artistry is fantastic and I am envious of your skill.

A couple, errr, requests? With the unfortunate incident of your loss, perhaps (under the assumption that you will resume work on a new map of the same style) you would enjoy going into more detail on the creation process. Specifically, your mountains which I personally find to be some of the best I've seen.

In my maps I've generally made single brushes that I could then "paint" into the locations i feel necessary, but you are using more of a cut and paste method it seems. I understand that process, but the small sections of mountains that you have created still intrigue me. Were they drawn completely with a mouse in Photoshop? How did you color them?

Also, a comment about your forests. In Photoshop there is an "Offset" filter that will allow you to create seamless textures. Was this employed or did you really tile and match everything yourself? I would imagine that using the "offset" filter to create a seamless texture would be a big time saver in the future.

At any rate, you do truly fantastic work. As I said before, I am envious of your skill. I am also truly sorry for your loss. I've experienced data loss in the past and it can be heartbreaking.

Keep up the good work

Wag

[jfrazierjr]

A couple, errr, requests? With the unfortunate incident of your loss, perhaps (under the assumption that you will resume work on a new map of the same style) you would enjoy going into more detail on the creation process. Specifically, your mountains which I personally find to be some of the best I've seen.

In my maps I've generally made single brushes that I could then "paint" into the locations i feel necessary, but you are using more of a cut and paste method it seems. I understand that process, but the small sections of mountains that you have created still intrigue me. Were they drawn completely with a mouse in Photoshop? How did you color them?

Wag, i rather like your mountains from what I have seen and of course, I can't really comment on how Megrim did his, but from the look of it, I suspect he may have done something close to what I did in my ISO mountains tutorial. Though it was written from GIMP, the techniques are universal enough that you might want to take a look and start experimenting. The link is in my sig if you want to check it out.

[Wag]

Thanks for the heads up on the ISO mountains tutorial jfrazierjr. It actually gives me a few adaptation ideas for doing something similar in Photoshop. In some ways its not as versatile at the brushes I've already created, and in other ways its more versatile. It's just such a radically different style that is aesthetically very pleasing to me. Granted the rest of this map is fantastic as well. I am truly amazed at just how hand drawn it looks.

Thanks!

Wag

[jfrazierjr]

Thanks for the heads up on the ISO mountains tutorial jfrazierjr. It actually gives me a few adaptation ideas for doing something similar in Photoshop. In some ways its not as versatile at the brushes I've already created, and in other ways its more versatile. It's just such a radically different style that is aesthetically very pleasing to me. Granted the rest of this map is fantastic as well. I am truly amazed at just how hand drawn it looks.

Thanks!

Wag

Yes, thats the one thing against doing it "my" way is that it is terribly time consuming. However, I think the fact that every single mountain is unique makes it well worth it if you have the time. I am also working on a set of ISO mountain symbols/gimp brushes and if I can ever get them finished, you could always lay some down in a random pattern and then use the smudge tool to blend them into the underlying terrain as needed. Of course, you could make your own brushes in the same manner as kind of a "jump start". It won't look as good as doing each individually, but you can still get some very nice results using brushes if you will also take the time to "finish" up the process after laying the brushes down onto the canvas and smudge them into the underlying terrain.


In case you have not seen it, here is a WIP where I hand drew and smudged each mountain/hill: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=3653

[Wag]

Every Day I'm amazed at the new things I find on this site. I had not ventured into that thread before, but I am certainly impressed with the style of these maps. One of the maps I plan on doing in the not too distant future is a smaller island map and will likely try this more "hand drawn" approach as I will have a small quantity of individual mountains to do.

That’s the thing about making things look good though. They are terribly time consuming methods. One always thinks of the creation process as so glamorous, but in reality it's just about the time it takes which is often times substantial.

Absolutely fantastic. Thanks

[megrim]

BLAST FROM THE PAST! i managed to get some of the original files from my old hard drive. sooooooooooooo i will continue with this map as my story progresses, the updates will be SLOW. No interactive map since the files i was using are lost. Anyways, this is not map related but its related to the story i was originally writing for it, this is Aiden, the name of the main character, i did him in adobe illustrator

[megrim]

here we go added Aberwyn and the castletown of Galeah

[PixelFish]

I particularly like the illustrative effect of the chasms and cliffs and ridges. The colour choices are nice too--very cohesive and giving off a slightly aged feel.

Are you planning on keeping the compass rose there or perchance is it a temporary watermark? It's nice looking but distracting at its current size and location.

Really nice work so far.

PS. How did you do the borders?

[megrim]

I particularly like the illustrative effect of the chasms and cliffs and ridges. The colour choices are nice too--very cohesive and giving off a slightly aged feel.

Are you planning on keeping the compass rose there or perchance is it a temporary watermark? It's nice looking but distracting at its current size and location.

Really nice work so far.

PS. How did you do the borders?

its a temporary watermark. About the borders i honestly don't remember but i will look into it to see if i remember ho i made it.

[Ramah]

Wow, this is looking very beautiful indeed. I love the desert and rocky regions.
The only thing that I'm not too fond of are the icons you seem to be using for cities etc. which look too computer generated compared to the rest of the map.

Great work.