WIP - Avearia - Looking for feedback

[kacey]

Hi Diamond, thanx for the nice comments.

uniformity of colour and appearance is exactly why I wanted to do all the line work first then work on the colours. I've tried doing it in pieces before only to find that I've forgotten which brush I used, or what colour or opacity, it's really frustrating, and since I'm sure I'll be spending massive amounts of time on the mountains I'd like it to be as pain free as possible.

I did thin out the coast like you said, I hope I did it thin enough because it definitely took some time, but overall I think it's an improvement. I was hoping to clean up the coast, and I think I accomplished that. Do you think its ok in my latest update, or should I work on it more?

I did decide to keep the rivers as fjords, and I hope to somehow make them look raised a bit, or like there's giant cliffs along the coast or something. I haven't quite worked out yet what I'm going to do, but I'm sure in time I'll figure something out.

Thank you so much for taking the time to draw on top of my map, now hopefully I can do it half as good as you did.

I agree with you whole heartedly about the text, and I will be changing it in the future it's just not at the top of my list right now. I'm not even sure I'm going to keep the title in that corner. We'll see, but if you have any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated.

[Diamond]

The coastline looks 100% better now - good job.

Cliffs are hard. Might be the hardest thing for me (besides forests). In fact if you look at all my maps posted here, you could probably count on one hand the number of maps that show cliffs. The one you've drawn looks pretty good though; maybe adapt that somehow for the fjords?

[tainotim]

Not much feedback here, just wanted to say that I love what you have so far. There is something refreshing about your style, and I'm eager to see how this will turn out in the end

Also, unless you mind me asking, what paper texture are you using? Something of your own or something free? Incase its free I would love to have a link to it (if you don't mind). I really like it.

Keep up the great work!

Cheers,
Tainotim

[Deadshade]

I decided to keep my failed rivers as fjords, do you think this is wise? or should I try to knock them back, and turn them into proper rivers? I wonder what you're opinion is on this matter.

As for the mountains I agree with you on the terminology, they do look more like scattered hills, so it's good that I only spent a few minutes on them. I plan on a major overhaul when it comes to mountains. I will be checking out more tutorials before I delve into it too deeply. I checked out you're tutorial, and it seems very informative. I'm also interested in reading you're tutorials on climate, and trees. I need all the help I can get.

I still have reservations about the border. I'm not quite sure how to remove the fuzziness, if you have any ideas on how I should go about this it would be greatly appreciated.

Glad it helped. We were all doing our first map one day too.
You can keep the fjords but the thing is that fjords never come alone - if it is a fjord coast then there would be several - some of them receiving rivers and some not.
But you know, the tapering is very gradual so that you could draw the river with only a single pixel line and double it to 2 pixels from the middle to the coast. Or do it by thirds. If you look at the maps here, you'll see that the rivers are hardly tapering at all.

You are on the right track if you do some attempts on mountains with paper and pencil first. Just connect the ridges, have secondary crests approximately orthogonal to the main range ridge, put light on the right slopes and shadow on the opposite slopes.
Note that because of the diffused light, the light is strongest at the top of the lighted slope and the shadow is strongest at the top of the shadowed slope. Last add some détails like cracks and boulders. You just train that and you are set for any future mountain range.

Well I guess that you got the border from somewhere and then changed somehow resolution and got the border fuzzy.
It can be only healed by retaking the same border from where it came and put it in the right resolution and the sharpness is back.
But again, I like the elegant simple choice you did.

[kacey]

Very good start indeed. I like the general composition and colors. The borders is fitting the rest naturally. I completely agree with Diamond about the font, and I would probably just tone down a little bit the light on your mountains/cliff.

Thanx Ilanthar, I was really considering changing the border, but a few people have suggested keeping it so I think I'll have to reconsider. I was hoping to try and incorporate one of those checker borders that I see in allot of other maps, and maybe some more embellishment, but I'll have to go through some more tutorials first as I have no idea how to pull it off.

As with the mountain highlights I'll definitely try that, I'm just starting to redraw the mountains today, without much luck mind you, but when I get to shading them I will tone down the highlight, and see how it works out.

[kacey]

I would agree with the others - the best piece of advice I have for you is to push on the way you are doing it now, and see what comes out! Best case, you come out with a really nice map: several of the elements you have here works quite well together. Worst case, you get practice and learn things that you'd like to do better next time.

For the mountains, I might practice a bit at doing variations on what you have that are bigger and connect into more of a range. You can absolutely keep what you have as isolated hills, but they don't really indicate a major mountain range. Mostly the difference is going to be scale (making them larger), spacing (putting them closer together), and making sure that the ridges line up in a sensible way. There are lots of different styles around here to try for.

I think you're right about the rivers, but the solution shouldn't be too dramatic. Can you go back and pull the banks in a little as the rivers widen out? Just try tracing a new contour slightly inward of what you have.

Thanks for the advice, I've been trying to work out the mountains today, trying to make a mountain chain, and playing with the variation in size like you said, but I'm getting really frustrated with it. I'll keep trying till I get it right, hopefully it doesn't take too long, but I am new at it so it'll take some more practice I'm sure.

I tried pulling back those rivers without much luck so I've decided to keep them as fjords, and maybe try to get it to look more raised, and jagged looking or add banks or something.

I'm definitely getting some practice like you said, so weather I can work it out or not, it will, like you said, be a learning experience.

[J.Edward]

Hey Kacey, just a tip for you. You can quote multiple people in the same post by clicking the little 'speech bubble with a plus sign' at each post you want to quote in your reply.
It's called 'Multi-quote'.
Then on the last one after clicking the Multi-quote, click 'reply with quote' and they'll all be there for you to use.
Then you won't have to do multiple posts. I used to do the same thing myself. Knowing is half the battle.

[kacey]

My pleasure kacey. Rivers look much, much better now. The coastline looks great, especially now that you've added waves (nice touch that), and the line weight looks good to me.

For the coastlines in that map I linked to I took a lot of inspiration from some of Jonathon Roberts (aka Torstan's) work, so credit goes to him there.

Keep up the good work, you are off to a great start.



Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Thanx Arsheesh, I'm glad you like the waves, I spent several hours getting them right, I think I redrew them like 4 times before I was happy with them, and for a subtle change I like how they turned out.

I've seen his maps before, and think I've read through some of his tutorials if I'm not mistaken. I'll have to revisit more of his work if it's what inspired you're coast line so that hopefully I can pick up some of that inspiration as well.

[kacey]

The coastline looks 100% better now - good job.

Cliffs are hard. Might be the hardest thing for me (besides forests). In fact if you look at all my maps posted here, you could probably count on one hand the number of maps that show cliffs. The one you've drawn looks pretty good though; maybe adapt that somehow for the fjords?

I'll give that a try, I was actually thinking the same thing.

[kacey]

Hey Kacey, just a tip for you. You can quote multiple people in the same post by clicking the little 'speech bubble with a plus sign' at each post you want to quote in your reply.
It's called 'Multi-quote'.
Then on the last one after clicking the Multi-quote, click 'reply with quote' and they'll all be there for you to use.
Then you won't have to do multiple posts. I used to do the same thing myself. Knowing is half the battle.

Thanx for the tip. I find that if I spend too much time composing a message when I hit submit it makes me refresh and login again, it's happening allot, and I'm finding I have to re type allot of my messages... Any advice on this.