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Thread: Help Remaking a Regional "Painted" Map

  1. #1
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    Wip Help Remaking a Regional "Painted" Map

    I've recently started using Photoshop and wanted to remake my old campaign. The original scale has been reduced from the one posted in the original. Rather than representing 50 miles, it now represents only 20.

    Thoughts and any help. I'm trying to decide how I want the city and town dots to look on the new map, that's why it is blank. Also I need to create that hilly region on the new map (southeast of the Bird Forest), but can't figure anyway I should do this.

    I'm looking for a painted on style map.

    Anyway, any help or suggestions will be really appreciated.
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    Last edited by Vernon; 08-05-2008 at 01:53 PM.

  2. #2

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    Two things that strike me are the contrast in styles between the two maps - the one on the left looks handdrawn (although the repeated mountain symbols detract from the effect) and the one on the right looks like it's from a modern atlas. Not sure if those were the effects you were shooting for.

    For me, I'd prefer to see more of a similarity of styles (at least in terms of modernity or lack of it) if the maps are to fit in one campaign - although individually both are really pretty maps.

    The second striking element to me is the forest fill you've used in the first map. I really like it and don't think I've seen it before.

    Welcome to the guild btw! Do post up on the members introductions forum and tell us a bit more about yourself!

  3. #3
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    While both maps are quite nice, for me the one on the right is more my style. I don't think wouldn't be terribly difficult to give that some 'depth and detail' (for lack of better words) to "spruce it up a bit.

    But since you seem to prefer the hand-drawn, iso style you might look on the Dunjinni forums in the ISO user art thread, you may find something that'll work for you or better yet some inspiration to make your own.
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.



  4. #4
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    Thanks for the welcome and the compliments, I'll head over there when I have more time. I've always been interested in mapping so I consider these forums a nice find.

    The contrast in style is because one is the older (the atlas-style as you described) and the other is the style I'd like to remake it in. As you can see I still need to finish the roads, mark the cities, and then find a way to create the hilly region. Then I am just going to paint a really soft and low-opacity green and yellow and brown throughout the map in the open areas, then finish it off with lables.

    I don't really like the mountains, but I couldn't find or think of a way to make them more art-like. I just made a custom brush with a little jitter to it because its the most hand-drawn style I was able to find. In addition, I don't like the lack of detail, because in the original map I was able to show the varying degrees of height and density in the mountain ranges, though I'm not too worried about this, I'd like to at least have a better transition from mountain to normal ground. I'm still looking for a better method...

    I've been using a heavy influence from the Zombie Nirvana tutorials, so that's where the tree pattern came from.

    That's why I'm here asking for help . By the way I've only had PS for the last week, and this is my first time trying the more hand-painted style. Any help is appreciated

  5. #5
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    I took a look at the Dunjinni forums, but couldn't really find anything I wanted for hills and mountains. I'm considering using small castle or building symbols for the towns and cities, but I can't decide if this is more on cue with the hand-drawn style or if dots and square markers is moreso.

    Some hope, though, I just did a Google search and found an example of a mountain range style that I liked and I think will fit the style I've presented. I just have to figure out a way to recreate it now...
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  6. #6

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    Sorry, I was being dim, I thought the first map was a zoomed in section of the second map. That's what comes of trying to read posts too quickly. Things I would experiment with:

    Look up Happimess's tutorial on handdrawn mountains, it takes time but if you want this style of map I don't think you can get away with repeated symbols, you will need at least 20 or so different drawings of mountains, perhaps more to fool the eye into thinking that they are all handdrawn.

    Might be worth daubing more of the plain areas of the map with that watercolour brush - could give it a bit more character.

    You have a road overlaying the forest (if it is a road, I mean the red line) - I would mask out the forest around the road.

    I'd also be tempted to put a black stroke around the rivers so they are consistent with the lakes and mask out the bit of the stroke where the river joins the lake.

    Just some ideas to play with!

  7. #7
    Guild Member Tancread's Avatar
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    I am pretty sure that small map clip you have there is a Games Workshop map which makes Happimess's tutorial that exact thing for you to have a look at. His map in the tutorial is another part of the GW world, but it is exactly the same style.
    Last edited by Tancread; 08-05-2008 at 05:07 PM. Reason: clarified I meant the small map sample above.

  8. #8
    Guild Artisan landorl's Avatar
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    A graphics tablet would be your best friend for doing the mountains. You could also hand draw the entire map and then scan it in, but personally, I have never had the best results with scanned maps. Of course I have a fairly cheap scanner

  9. #9
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    I've been looking at graphics tablets, but I'm going to wait on getting one since it isn't something I think I need to finish. I went ahead and colored in the open areas with a water color brush; I wanted to save this for the end but I guess it doesn't really matter if I do it now.

    I also gave the rivers a stroke and I like the way that ended up looking. I've gotten rid of the mountains and will fill them in next chance I have to work on the map...

    Any suggestions for what to use to denote the cities? A circle? A square? A picture?

    And any ideas for the foot hills would be appreciated, too. I think I can just do them as the mountains, but just shorter.
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  10. #10

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    A couple of things. For the scale you're depicting, you had too far too many very tiny mountains. Consider making each mountain symbol about four to six times the size of each tree "tuft." Not only will that make your scaling look nicer, it will also mean fewer mountains to have to draw/place.

    For the foothills, many maps of this sort use a smaller, round-topped symbol to indicate hills. Consider the attached image, which is a section of a map drawn with Campaign Cartographer 3 (full map here).

    For towns and cities, you can certainly go with a simple dot, square or symbol; that's what I prefer. There are plenty of maps with little city icons, too, though, which look really good. I don't recall if anyone shared any of those or not. If not, that would be a good thing to add to our resources area here.
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    Last edited by Midgardsormr; 08-06-2008 at 12:54 PM. Reason: punctuation error
    Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
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