[WIP] Dor-en-Ernil - The Land of the Prince: ...Yes, another ME map ;)

[Abu Lafia]

I really like those forests - they do look pretty convincing. I agree that the mountains seem a little sparse in comparison - what about doing some more line work / subtle shading or even some faint crosshatching?

Thanks a lot for the feedback Diamond! Glad you like the forests. I'm going to try to "do something" with the mountains. But in my experience it's pretty hard to produce subtle or faint shading-linework only with a mouse. I didn't get a "flow" to make the linework look consistent. Also "pressure-sensitivity" or fading is needed for this i guess.

[Diamond]

Well, you could cheat and lower the opacity, use the blur tool, or use a really soft erase brush after you do the linework. I hear you about it being hard to do with a mouse, though.

[Ilanthar]

Diamond's suggestions are good. You can also play on the the resizing effects/blur. I was quite surprised to discover that I could do something like this with a mouse, just by playing with the size and layers. As in drawing by hand, you'll get better results with a big picture as you can do long strokes (which are easier to keep consistent).
Just lines then additionnal shadings and texture .

[Abu Lafia]

Oh sorry Ilanthar, i totally missed your comment. Thanks for the suggestions and your lovely illustration. I tried some things but in the end, to make the mountains similar to the ones you posted here, i'd have to redo them completely which i decided against. Not to speak of the fact that i fear not to be able to make the hundreds of them look consistent (stylewise)... I'm not too unhappy with how the mountains are atm, although i'm aware they are somewhat "limited".

Coming to this update:
With my tendency to start working on new elements on the map while having others still incomplete, i couldn't resist testing some labelling. Many around here suggested making them with a vector-based program instead of gimp, so i jumped into the cold water of a new software: Inkscape... To arrange texts along paths it's indeed much easier to handle, although it took some time and some video tuts to figure out how it works (still struggling wit a lot of things!)
Not sure if i overused the curved labels a bit (or put them in wrong places). I'd love to hear what you think of it and what could be improved (font/colour?).

I also used inkscape to make the coat of arms (the swan-ship of the house of Dol-Amroth). I'm actually pretty happy with the result. Also worked a bit on the border/frame

On the actual map, besides finishing the shading/highlighting of the mountains, i redid most of the rivers. The linework of the mountains will need some more work but the shape of the landscape is somewhat complete now.

-Next i will be adding more forests and maybe adding some cliffs on the western coast.

-Then i have to add city-icons and bridges/lighttowers, etc.

-A general question for me to answer soon is if, how and where to color parts of the map differently?

All kinds of comments are (as always) very welcome!

Cheers,
AL

[J.Edward]

It's looking good Abu.
I don't think you overused curves. I would maybe suggest some different curves. But some of those would likely just be personal choices.
I like that you gave the proper name and the common name. That's a plus. I had to just choose one as space was tight in areas.
To answer the question you asked on my thread - I pretty much scoured the net and all the MERP books I could find to get at those names.
They weren't easy to find. Most of the ones around Belfalas came from MERP. PM me if you're in need of any MERP ref as I now have a good bit.

[Astrogator]

Nice to see even more Tolkien maps being made! Looking good so far, I also really like the coat of arms, minimalistic, but fitting for a principality of Gondor (I think it's supposed to be white on blue ground in the books, though).

There was also a set of maps released for the movies, done by Daniel Reeve, that contain many place-names for landmarks and towns not named by Tolkien (though of course this could be anathema to a purist). There's also a map for West Gondor which contains Belfalas and Dol Amroth, with lots of placenames and such.

[Ilanthar]

Don't worry Abu! I'm myself not very often online currently anyway. It's looking good and the shield is a nice addition.

[Abu Lafia]

Thanks a lot for your comments guys!
@J.Edward: thanks for the offer, i might pm you soon, since i'm working on the the cities atm
@Astrogator: Glad you like it, and thanks a lot for the reference to Daniel Reeve, he's a great artist, a shame i only knew his "middle earth" map till now... btw.: the coat-of-arms on the map is white on blue, just a bit dark... i guess in heraldry the colours are (or should be) usually more clear/disinctive?
@Ilanthar: Thank you, much appreciated!

I did some work on the map:



- i tweaked the linework of the mountains a little bit (thinned the end of the lines mainly)

- finalised the rivers/landform, added an outline to it and some "coast-water-lines"

- added some cliffs on the eastern coast of Belfalas and Tolfalas

- placed some more forests

- i made a fancy swan-compass..yay!

- i colored the landmass

- finally i tried to make some city icons, would love to hear what you think

- i used this nice little program to make a celtic-knot-ornament for the border

- added the "Song of Nimrodel" from LotR as a placeholder(?) since the story is partly based in the region

Next, i need to shade/highlight the forests and the cliffs and add a lot more cities, towns, castles and other stuff as roads, bridges, etc.

Any kind of comment, critique or suggestion is very welcome and greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
AL

[ravells]

WOW! Great work, Abu! I hated the wiki version of the Dol Amroth emblem - would you mind if I used yours? It rocks. The Swan compass is just inspired ...can I use that too?

Onto details! (or Deets! as a friends of mine once called them). Is there any way you can adjust your coastline to fit with my Dol Amroth map? Picture below. It would be so cool if we could have them working together. I tried looking for ways to fit my map to yours but I need the Eastern most point of the peninsula (where the sea-ward tower is) to be close enough to DA city to be heard by large bell (which is what the watchtower had - according to what I've read).

I think you should work more more on the mountain symbols. I think (as someone said further up) you need to blur something - probably the mountain lines. The reason for this is that the mountain lines look computer drawn and the rest looks like it want to be hand drawn. I don't know what software you are using, but use a lot more of 'dodge' and 'burn' (photoshop) on the sides of the mountains. That should really make them shine. At the moment they look like one style pasted on top of another. I really like your colour choices of the sea and land - those work for me. The Islands are good but all seem to go in the same NE/SW direction....maybe curve a few to make them look more natural? (very small point I'm just looking closesly).

I think your forests are fantastic! They really fit with the map. More please? Can you maybe bring Fangorn down there (they can walk) so I can see a big one?

Labelling: Beware distorting the text. It looks horrible. By all means put it on a line but don't distort it. Distorted text really jumps off the page in a bad way.

Those are my thoughts for now and great to be a small part of your greater world!

best

Ravs

[Abu Lafia]

WOW! Great work, Abu! I hated the wiki version of the Dol Amroth emblem - would you mind if I used yours? It rocks. The Swan compass is just inspired ...can I use that too?

Hey Ravs, glad you like it. I'd be more than happy if the emblem and the compass could be of use for your map (i had the same discontent with the existing DA-emblems ). I attached some files, hope you can work with it. I messed up the original compass layer, so you might need to add the (rest of the) outer circle and the lines...

Wappennschiff.svg

Thank you so much for your detailed feedback, i will respond to it "deet by deet" :

Is there any way you can adjust your coastline to fit with my Dol Amroth map? Picture below. It would be so cool if we could have them working together. I tried looking for ways to fit my map to yours but I need the Eastern most point of the peninsula (where the sea-ward tower is) to be close enough to DA city to be heard by large bell (which is what the watchtower had - according to what I've read).

It think it's not too much of a problem for me to adjust the coastline, and it would be very cool indeed to make the two maps fit together. The one obstacle i see is that i was going to depict the cities massively out of scale and only with some buildings. For DA i was thinking about Imrahil's castle the sea-ward tower and ofc the moles u thought out so nicely. If the buildings were only nearly the scale of the other city-icon-buildings i made, i fear they might "bury" the small peninsula of Dol Amroth ^^. Another point is, i'm not sure how to draw it perspective wise on this map, since the moles are headng northwards and so lay "behind" the castle and tower... I'll test it and post the results soon.

EDIT: couldn't resist and made a first try. A smaller version with the coastline you provided.

and a larger scaled version which fits better with the size of the other buildings but an enlarged peninsula of Dol Amroth:

I think you should work more more on the mountain symbols. I think (as someone said further up) you need to blur something - probably the mountain lines. The reason for this is that the mountain lines look computer drawn and the rest looks like it want to be hand drawn. I don't know what software you are using, but use a lot more of 'dodge' and 'burn' (photoshop) on the sides of the mountains. That should really make them shine. At the moment they look like one style pasted on top of another.

Well, mountains: The philosopher's stone of the CG! I agree to use dodge/burn more on the mountains since they look indeed somewhat "flat". I tried blurring the lines ^^ but wasn't too happy with the result. I'm aware this chapter isn't closed yet...

I really like your colour choices of the sea and land - those work for me. The Islands are good but all seem to go in the same NE/SW direction....maybe curve a few to make them look more natural? (very small point I'm just looking closesly).

Good to hear you like the colour choice. I will see how the adjustment of coastlines on the DA-peninsula works out and maybe make some further adjustments on the islands. But it's not the first priority atm.

I think your forests are fantastic! They really fit with the map. More please? Can you maybe bring Fangorn down there (they can walk) so I can see a big one?

Glad you like them, forgot to mention, that ofc i'll add more of them (will see how big they get ). I also need to dodge/burn them (only in gimp ofc...don't want no trouble with Treebeard and his fellows XD).

Labelling: Beware distorting the text. It looks horrible. By all means put it on a line but don't distort it. Distorted text really jumps off the page in a bad way.

Yeah, i played around a bit with the text/path functions in inkscape (still have to learn a lot) but in the end the labels really need an update. Don't want Prof. Imhof to turn in his grave...

Those are my thoughts for now and great to be a small part of your greater world!

The City of Dol Amroth as province capital actually plays a big part (at least in "my" version ) for Belfalas ... that's why i'm overly happy to "merge the worlds" and build on your great work in this case!

Cheers,
AL