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Thread: North-Eastern Kingdoms of Durthaen

  1. #11

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    Lovely map! Makes me think of Narnia and all the fantasy worlds of good works.


    Much appreciated.

    Do I see a little zombie nirvana tutorial and photoshop in there? Care to say what resolution you were working with and how you did it?


    Sigurd

  2. #12

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    Great map - very evocative! Your design choices with the various elements keep things simple, but fit together beautifully to create that old-world style. Like the others, I particularly like the forests - they have enough detail to be representative, but still keep the color palette small, which is key to the overall effect. Being rather a newb with PS/Gimp, could someone briefly describe how to get the outline effect seen on the forests? It looks too precise to be a lighting effect to me. I would also have to agree with Jezelf about the mountains - they seem too similar to the hills to me. Perhaps a few hand-drawn strokes in gray across each one would differentiate them without being overwhelming? As for the fonts, I think they're fine. They don't seem at all out of place to my eye. I notice, however, that the regional labels ("Kingdom of Grenwick" for example) are underneath your forest layer. That seems strange to me, but perhaps it was intentional.

    Again, fantastic map. I'll be saving a copy in my reference folder of inspirational examples.

  3. #13
    Community Leader Facebook Connected torstan's Avatar
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    Yep, that is a lovely map - and duly repped. I have to agree with the comments on the mountains. They feel a bit like they never got coloured when compared to the trees. Still very pretty though. Also, I'm a little unsure about the road threading in and out of Dunswick. The trees are great, and the detailed towns look good too. Great map!

  4. #14
    Guild Novice Vapour's Avatar
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    Wow! Thanks for all the really awesome comments and critique folks.
    Yes Jezelf, tppytel and torstan - I agree with you on the mountains. I'm not good at mountains yet and was not happy with the final result. They were too over-powering and made an already busy map look quite shambly (if such a word exists). I coloured them and made them 30% transparent to tone them back. Next map I'll do better.
    tppytel - The Regional text going behind forests is intentional. I've intertwined the roads through the regional text as well. It was a bit of an experiment, but I was very happy with the result.
    Sigurd - The original map was done at 300dpi.

    Thank you all again.

  5. #15

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    Holy friholi, Vapour! This is fantastic work. I am incredibly impressed.

    I only have three thoughts:

    1. The typeface used in the legend and scale might be well replaced by what you're using in the rest of the map.

    2. The brown mountains are disjarring somewhat? But would they be more disjarring in a dark color? Maybe.

    3. The trouble with big, detail-intensive maps is all those wonderful details can get lost pretty easily. But with that said, I think you've done a fantastic job working it all together!

    Quote Originally Posted by Vapour View Post
    Thanks Ghalev! Thankfully I have access to a colour printer capable of spitting this out full size. The map hangs on my wall as a handy reference for my writing.
    Hahaha, I'm planning on doing the same with my maps when they get "finished."
    Current Project: The Low Countries & Their Periphery, c. 1584

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  6. #16
    Guild Applicant drwolf0014's Avatar
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    Fantastic. Beautiful line work. I especially like the fine lines along the coast. Very subtle.

  7. #17

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    K, I demand a tutorial on how you made those amazing forests.

    *gets kicked by inner self*

    Err, I mean... Would you please tell us how you did those amazing forests? Pretty please?

  8. #18
    Guild Novice Vapour's Avatar
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    Stargate525. The forests are drawn on paper, inked then scanned into the computer. Make sure there is a bit of dark shadowing on one side. In Photoshop I created a layer out of the ink line that is clear in all other parts. I then under paint the layer with green and then add a drop shadow generated from that painted layer.
    That's it.

  9. #19
    Guild Adept Valarian's Avatar
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    I'm going to be bring and agree with everyone else. But with a map like this, I can hardly find fault. Even someone as negative and analytic as me

    Quote Originally Posted by tppytel View Post
    I notice, however, that the regional labels ("Kingdom of Grenwick" for example) are underneath your forest layer. That seems strange to me, but perhaps it was intentional.
    Quote Originally Posted by Vapour View Post
    tppytel - The Regional text going behind forests is intentional. I've intertwined the roads through the regional text as well. It was a bit of an experiment, but I was very happy with the result.
    The only comment I was going to make has already been addressed. I think the intertwining of the names with the roads is interesting, but you're losing part of the regional names under the forests. It's okay if someone is familiar with your game world, but I can't work out what the Empire in the north-west is called at all.
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