Greetings and Hallucinations,,,,

[JrFan88]

Howdy all!

I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this in, but what the heck. I hail from California and I got turned-on to CG by some friends at Conquer Club. See, I've had a wild hair to do a CC map, but after some experimenting (with MSPaint, ewww) and banging my head against the kb over GIMP, I was about to give up the whole affair till someone told me about the tutorials posted here. That has made a world of difference!

Thanks to RobA & Karro, whose tuts were phenomenally helpful, the deep mysteries of layering, detailing and fine-tuning in GIMP have been replaced with a solid working knowledge that has re-newed my enthusiasim for creating a game map for CC. Now, I may not be producing an awe-inspiring map any time soon, but I don't think I'll have any trouble coming up with something I can be proud of.

Which leads to this, my first multi-layered map. It may be a bit crude by some standards, but I'm as happy as a fly on sh*t with it myself, 'specially because it only took a couple of afternoons to whup up. I hope to get some honest crtiques, but be kind: I've only been working with GIMP for about 2 weeks.

This is supposed to be an island with an extinct/dormant volcano. The central cone is surrounded by ancient lava flows fanning out to the lowlands, and the coastline is banded by beaches. Waddya think?

[Gamerprinter]

Wow, a map on your very first post! Have some REP for doing that.

I'm not a GIMP guru, but your map has some strong points. The volcano definitely looks like a volcano with elements of height in the shades of brown. Also the sandy coastline stands out well against the green interior landscape.

Did you use a bump map on that volcano? I think you could increase the effect that what is shown if do (or increase contrast if you did.)

The colors look a bit saturated - but that's a matter of personal taste I suppose, so small nitpick. I think if you subdued the colors slightly it might improve IMO.

Is the a grassy or forested island? If forested perhaps use a darker green against the grassy ground beneath.

Again, thank you for posting a map in your first post!

GP

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

As GP said not often we see an actual map in someone's first post (I know I didn't )
I will echo most of GP's comments, but a great start none-the-less.

[NeonKnight]

Welcome to the Guild!

I see someone already banished your BLUE PIP o SHAME but I will still rep ya anyways