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Thread: "Left-Justified" Continent

  1. #1
    Guild Journeyer
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    Wip "Left-Justified" Continent

    I'm really not even sure if this is a continent... I don't know how big it is, I'm just going with it. I started off by studying a map of middle-earth to see what made the map "click", in a sense; I used the major elements, such as colours and saturations, landforms, etc., though in the end I felt it was too close to the original. I'm still not disappointed with the results so far. Tell me what you think:

    Black and white map:
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    Coloured:
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    Started adding mountains:
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    Don't be shy.

    Edit: I wanted to include a little backstory, just forgot. I've never included a backstory as such for my map. Since I was trying to exmine cliches in fantasy I thought up a nice narrative to go along with it. Drawing upon CS Lewis's Christian themes and Tolkien's elves, I thought, what if the holy land referred to heaven? So, the God, Saljorar, frees his people from the grasps of the old empire, ruled by the evil God (haven't thought of a name yet, and this is fantasy! everyone's either good or evil). He then sends them out of the desert and across the sea to the little islands on the bottom left corner, his own kingdom, and rewards them for their faith to him by giving them superhuman abilities. Now we have "elves". However, these elves are really just people too, with all the same imperfections, and they get arrogant and become a bit of a mixed bag of evil and good. Everyone still thinks they're great, though, because they stayed faithful to "Saljorar". Then various problems arise because Saljorar and his people have left the world, then there's some kind of showdown between the... supposedly evil God and the... supposedly good God. Massive fantasy battle/s. War. Awesome. Good triumphs over evil (or does it?) That's where I'm at so far; I was just having some fun, hope you guys had some fun reading it.
    Last edited by NedS298; 06-24-2014 at 07:24 AM.

  2. #2
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    I'm getting the vibe that it's no good but I've kept on working on it anyway.

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    I turned a few adjustment layers off before posting this to see if it got a more positive reaction.
    Last edited by NedS298; 06-25-2014 at 07:26 AM.

  3. #3
    Guild Adept fabio p's Avatar
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    Ok Ned, I think you're doing a good job.
    I really like the landmass shape, the mountains are simple yet nice, the basic landmass colouring is ok even if I don't like too much the too evident "cloud" effect.
    Just keep it up and let's see what comes out!

  4. #4
    Administrator Facebook Connected Diamond's Avatar
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    I like the landmass shape.

    One thing that bugs me is the placement of your mountain chains. I'm not saying you need to work out in excruciating detail where your tectonic plates are and how that affects mountain placement (I sure don't!), but right now it seems artificial; the chains are neatly placed and symmetrical and mirror each other left to right a little too closely.

  5. #5
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    I think my composition instincts were coming through. Either way, I made some (limited) changes, so hopefully it won't look as contrived. @fabiop: I also tried playing around with some stuff I thought could work, including just a pure white landmass with some orange shading for the desert and green for the two islands. I have yet to find anything I like, but I'll post it when I do.

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