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Thread: The new empire of Valonya WIP

  1. #1

    Default The new empire of Valonya WIP

    Hi,

    My good buddy and I are creating our own RPG world. First we were thinking about commissioning a map, but then I thought why not giving it a shot myself. This is what I have so far:

    I did a tutorial by Jezelf, since I have little clue about photoshop. The landmarks etc are by star raven, and the font is from LOTR, since this is only for personal use, I hope it will be fine. Any comments and remarks are welcome.
    Im planning on doing a colored map as well some day, and I hope my artistic skills will be enough to draw some decent mountains etc as well. )

    Cheers

    Miegstroem
    Last edited by miegstroem; 09-08-2013 at 08:05 AM.

  2. #2

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    Before.....

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  3. #3

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    And current state....

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  4. #4
    Guild Expert Eilathen's Avatar
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    I like it Ok ok, i am biased and will shut up

    Now come on guys, give the man some feedback...i bragged about this site and how helpful and insightful you all are...i hope you will prove me right

    As a first comment, your rivers start not where one would expect...now it seems they beginn in the middle of the plains when instead they should start in the mountains. And what is that lighter grey line that passes Kydonia? Is that also a river? If it is...it does weird things ...it looks like splitting from the bigger river and rivers almost never split...they merge on their way to the ocean.

    Cheers
    E.
    I'm trapped in Darkness,
    Still I reach out for the Stars

  5. #5
    Community Leader jfrazierjr's Avatar
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    Nice start.. I have a few suggestions/mild complaints.

    The biggest one I see is that the city symbols (and river/land edges) are blurry when compared to the mountains/trees/scrubgrass/text/compass scale. Pick one approach and keep a consistent look/feel though out.

    The other minor quibble is probably more of me being a perfectionist that anything else, but the scrubgrass you are using are almost as tall as the mountains(and are taller than the trees!!!) They work fine at the lower resolution, but when you view full sized, it just seems out of place. For me, it took me several moments to figure out... I know something was not quite right, but could not put my finger on exactly what it was.


    Also, what's with the rivers changing color from one shade of grey to a darker one? Is there a reason for that?
    My Finished Maps
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    My Tutorials:
    Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
    How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
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  6. #6
    Guild Grand Master Azélor's Avatar
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    It's a nice looking map, but I agree that the rivers need improvement. Right now, you have 3 size of river. Personally, I think the middle sized one fit better, considering the size of the map. If you want to keep them you should consider making a transition so the rivers gets bigger flowing downhill.

  7. #7
    Community Leader Guild Sponsor - Max -'s Avatar
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    Pretty good for a first try ok, a few comments though:
    - About labels : try avoid the PS/GIMP curved text tool that stretch text in a bad way. Prefer using the path tool to build your curved labels. There's a quick tuto by Thamupp in the Tutorial sections if you don't know how to do it.
    - About rivers : yes they need to be re-worked. The size seems very big regarding the other geographic elements size and you better check the "how to place rivers" thingie in the tutorial sections aswell since you have some issues with them for now.
    - About the brushes : I conciur with Jfrazier about the blurry city icons and the swamp symbols size. Your icons are blurry because you probably scale them up/down .
    - About the color : The map seems a bit dark to my tastes.

    Anyway, good luck with your mapping projects!

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