Kasanah - Commission for Poster for local game store D&D

[Chick]

Hi Everyone,

Some time back someone asked in this forum about a map for their local game store to use for generic D&D games. Although that never actually happened, I approached my local game store about the idea and got a commission for a poster map that will be used to teach D&D to newcomers. As of today, it's hanging in the store.

For my purposes, I wanted to learn to do better forests, so please feel free to critique. I know they're not perfect, but probably better than many I've done, and I want to thank Daelin for lots of good ideas on how to do them.

Hope you all like it enough to at least comment or whatever.

Cheers,
Cornelia

[Bogie]

Excellent map C! Nice that the local store want to make a poster for the wall out of it!

[Onilyn]

Never played D&D, but great map.

[Ilanthar]

Your forests are good, but they don't fit really well with the other elements (especially the "hand drawn style" mountains), imho. A good and clean map otherwise, and always a good thing to welcome new rpg gamers with some good-looking stuff!

[Wingshaw]

I agree with Ilanthar. I think a more illustrative style of forest would look better.

Also, I'm not too keen on the texture over the green-land. It looks like you just ran the clouds filter in PS and stuck it on top. In future, I would suggest making the texture more related to specific terrains, and treating coastlines/riverbanks differently to interior areas.

Lastly for the criticisms, and sorry for being so frank, but I think the hills aren't great. I also suspect the problem with them is obvious and doesn't really need to be expanded upon (correct me if I'm wrong; it's late here Down Under, and I don't much want to go into detail right now; if desired, I can give reasons later).

On the plus side, as someone who struggles with labelling, I like how clear and easy to read yours are.

Congrats on another completed commissions.

THW

[Deadshade]

I really like the forests, they look perfect to me. Also there is a nice overall balance between features.
But I also agree that the forests don't fit at all with the style of the mountains. With this kind of forests the mountains should have a more realistic style. So I would keep the forests and change the mountains.

The hills are yet another style - neither realistic like the forests nor handdrawn symbolic like the mountains. For my eye they don't belong.

In any case congrats for your store success

[Chick]

This is really interesting. What is it that makes a mountain style and a forest style "fit"?


These mountains are not hand-drawn, they are the mountain brushes from Quabbe, but I did the shading. The hills are "hand-drawn" but merely tracings of some hill brushes because I wanted them without the hatched shading, so I could shade them myself to match the mountains. My only thought was that maybe I should have made them denser.

Remember, I'm the person who flunked Crayons 101, I can't draw worth #$*&@.

THW, sure the texture is exactly that, a render/clouds filter, and I would expect someone familiar with these tools to recognize that immediately, but I'm not sure why you don't like it. To me, it gives exactly the look I wanted, one of gently rolling countryside with puffy cumulus floating overhead, a gentle but not flat boring grasslands. Obviously you don't see it that way, but do you have a suggestion for a better way to do that?

I really appreciate these comments, it sure helps to have the perspective of different people and how you see things. I'm still learning a lot every time I post a new picture -- no matter how good I think it is, someone is able to see new places for me to work on What a great community!

[Deadshade]

This is really interesting. What is it that makes a mountain style and a forest style "fit"?



Remember, I'm the person who flunked Crayons 101, I can't draw worth #$*&@.

Haha, you should not have done that
But that may explain the differences in perceptions.
I walked the opposite road - I like my pencil and when one works with a pencil one almost always creates in the same process.
It starts in a highly abstracted way which then gradually gets more realistic with the process of adding details (shadows, decorations, irregularities etc).
For example a mountain starts with a triangle - one could just stop there and throw triangles on a map and everybody would see mountains even if a mountain is never a triangle.
Next step transforms it in a tetrahedron and the triangle acquires volume.
Next step adds shadows and the thetrahedron acquires steepness.
Next step breaks the lines and the volume acquires rugosity.

For a person one starts with an ellipse and a few sticks in given proportions. Then it gets "clothed" with mass, volume and movement. In the end one can do painted fingernails if one so wishes
Etc.

So what I call style in my personal definition is a slider that goes from a flat triangle (highest abstraction) to a photography (no abstraction).
Of course everybody puts the slider on a different place where he feels confortable - so a triangle is neither intrinsically worse nor better than a photograph. It's just a style.

So when I said that your mountains and your forests didn't "fit", it was because clearly you set the slider at different places on the same map.
This is not forbidden but it often creates an impression of disharmony.
That meant for me that your forests were far towards the photographic realistic style while your mountains were far towards the abstract tetrahedron style.
The hills even more so.

And for my eye that created an impression of disharmony - like if I drew a stick man on the back of a horse photograph.

[Chick]

...like if I drew a stick man on the back of a horse photograph.

Thank you for such a very clear explanation. Now I guess I need to start understanding where on your slider most of my stuff falls.

[Wingshaw]

Regarding the hills, the issues I think present are:
--I can see that you created stamps for the hills, since there are some hills of identical shape scattered on the map. That being the case, I think you may need to increase the number of hill stamps you use.
--The layout of the hills looks too sparse, and too regular. That is, each hill seems to sit in its own space. A more realistic, and, I think, better, approachwould be to allow the hills to overlap one another, and thus appear denser and make the landscape look more rugged.
--The shading is very minimal. At first glance, it doesn't appear at all, so the hills look just like squiggly black lines. What I would recommend, as a start, is painting each hill a different colour to the general background (a similar shade of green, but with more yellow and even brown added). Then, using a darker hue of that same colour, add the shadows (making them darkest and deepest on the lower left-hand slopes), and using a lighter hue, add some highlights on the right hand side.
--As a continuation to the last point, it might be worth making the outline shape of the hills a dark brown or grey, rather than stark black.

You're right that the texture effect on the ground doesn't appeal to me, but if it appeals to you, that's all that matters. We all have different taste for a reason, and I'm guessin' that reason is to make the world more interesting. I do still think a different treatment of the coastline is worthwhile, though.

Lastly, I also like Deadshade's explanation, and agree with him/her entirely.

THW