July / Aug 15 Lite Challenge: The Peninsula

[ChickPea]

I wanted to get cracking on this, so I've put something together tonight. I haven't actually got a proper name yet, so I'm just going to call my thread The Peninsula for now, though that might be slightly misleading since it's an area a few hundred miles long. Think I'm going to fall back on some world-building ideas I came up with for one of my previous maps, but I haven't completely decided yet, so The Peninsula it is for now.

Haven't done a huge amount yet and I have a feeling that I'll end up redoing my rivers a little once I add the mountains, but I'll worry about that down the line.

### Latest WIP ###

[GreatWhiteNorth]

You're coastal waves look excellent. How did you make them?

[ChickPea]

Thanks!

I had to try recreating the coast effect again just there to remind myself what I did, cos I messed about so much! I've listed below what I did. (I use Gimp but doubt there's much difference in Photoshop.)

1. Create a new layer and fill with black. Add random noise. I used the RGB noise filter with settings cranked up to the max (I was working on a greyscale image, so it was all black/white/grey noise). I found I got better results with black as foreground/white as background colour.
2. Apply filter 'Erase every other row'. (Does Photoshop have this filter?)
3. Go into Colour Threshold settings and play about with the slider until you've got a nice mix of black & white lines and breaks.
4. Select your land mass, grow selection by about 25(ish) pixels, feather selection by 25(ish) pixels and invert the selection. On the noise layer you just created, hit delete. This will give you the broken lines fading out around the coast.
5. Next, apply the Spread filter, horizontal only, with a setting of about 50 pixels. I applied the filter several times to break up the edges even more. You could probably start with a higher number, but I think a lot depends on the size of your land masses and how much you want to break it up.
6. Finally, I applied a small (2px) Motion Blur, angle 0, just to soften it slightly.

I set the layer blend to Multiply and turned down the opacity a little. And that's it. (I'm slightly amazed I managed to recreate this, after all the faffing about that I did LOL!) Hope it's useful.

[Bogie]

Yeah, I like the coastal waves a lot also.

[ChickPea]

Thanks Bogie.

I managed a little bit of work last night but ran out of time before I could upload my new WIP. I've changed the border because I found a new one I like better. Also, because I'm fickle.

Will hopefully post again tonight.

[Bogie]

I've changed the border because I found a new one I like better. Also, because I'm fickle.

Pink kitties are known to be fickle, they can't help it.

[ChickPea]

True, that.

[ChickPea]

I've been working on this off and on when I had the chance, so here's an update. I've done a whole bunch of things since my last post though there's still a few more bits and pieces to do, primarily the forests, which I've roughly positioned in green, just for now. I'm sorta getting to the stage where I'm not sure if I like it any more. When it was just the rivers and the mountains and the coasts, I liked it. But then all those towns and roads and stuff got added in, and I'm rapidly going off it. Civilisation, huh. It ruins everything!

###Latest WIP###


Not sure if I'm going off the grey background too. I might try something lighter. Not sure.

[Bogie]

Interesting mountains, almost look like a woodcut.

[snodsy]

Hi ChickPea; I think this looks really nice, like the mtns and coastlines shape, and the tapering rivers, maybe more branching off the main rivers.
Maybe take the Black dots down to a lighter grey OR maybe instead of a larger dot do a small dot with an outer ring stroke. The larger dot could be a little smaller and still read different than the small dots. Maybe same size - grey and black?

Could the roads have more spacing between dots or again grey.

The regional divisional lines aren't apparent - Make those grey?

Wish all the mountains had the same line weight, the large ones are thicker.

Shouldn't PORT LODAIR be all small caps like other major cities? Are you going to label the seas?

The hills seem a little random and evenly spaced to a degree, especially at the bottom.

I was just reading an article on Eduard Imhof on type treatment, he suggests type above the river lines, since there are less descenders than ascenders, they sit better. (although your R's have that strong descending leg it may not be best)

Overall I think your type treatment has really nice divisions

Just some thought,