Please help me liven up my map

[Yusaku Asano]

Hello there,
I am new to the map making and quite inexperienced.
I am trying to finish a map for my d&d campaign (following jezelf tutorial) and seems i have stuck. Right now i consider the map to be a bit blunt and dull.
I am great fun of the style of max's and (like http://orig02.deviantart.net/257d/f/...82-d8g9xqv.jpg ) ramah's maps (like http://img12.deviantart.net/5a30/i/2...er-d314tgj.jpg ), so i have in mind like the effects-atmosphere of their maps.

How should I proceed in order to liven up my map. Shall i use some textures or brushes to create some contrasts here and there. Some filters? Something else?

It would be great to hear your critique, comments and advice.

Thank you

Yusaku

[ChickPea]

Obviously much of this comes down to personal taste, but for me, the biggest problem is that your colours don't contrast much. Everything is very muted and nothing stands out. Even the text blends into the background. Ramah's map, for example, uses rather dark colours but the green of the land is very bright compared to the dark tone of the sea and it contrasts quite vividly. I like your map, and I like dark colours, but I think you need to boost the colours or the contrast somewhere, whether it's the sea or the land areas. Right now it feels like you've added a layer of brown or grey on top of everything and it's drowned out all the individual colour tones leaving everything a bit dull and washed out.

Trying playing about with the colour levels, brightness/contrast and some of the layer blend modes to see what appeals. I think you're off to a great start with this. It just needs a little 'oomph'. Looking forward to seeing your next update.

[DanielHasenbos]

I agree with chickpea, brighter colors would really help bumping the visual appeal of this map. Perhaps use some hints of blue in the sea and maybe make the labels a near white color to make them stand out.

On a side note: I noticed that the shading on your icons (cities, mountains, hills etc.) isn't consistent. On some icons the light seems to be coming from the left were on others it seems to be coming from the right.

I like the overall style of the map though, sort of mysterious and 'evil' ;p

-Dan

[Yusaku Asano]

Thank you both for your kind and helpful words. I ll see what can I do and I ll return with a new version of the map.
I am experimenting right now with various adjustments getting various results.
I also discovered the magic realm of the texture brushes!

I hope to have some time to post something soon!

[Hai-Etlik]

Maps are functional things first and foremost. Given a choice between being pleasing to the eye and being functional and correct, you should choose functional and correct. There is ultimately an aesthetic quality to being clear and realistic looking that can't be replicated by any filter or texture.

One of the hardest things for some people is accepting blank space in their maps. You need to let your maps have varied density of visual detail. Avoid the temptation to try to balance it out by filling empty spaces with textures, noise, distressing, or unnecessary and possibly anachronistic or contradictory graticules or rhumb lines. I think the tendency to reduce the contrast between background and foreground among many artists who make maps without being familiar with cartography is probably related to this as well. The real world does not distribute things we find interesting evenly over its surface and you need to match this to make your world look real. The varied density will actually become something of a summary for where the interesting parts of the map are. You can draw the eye of the viewer to the important parts of the map.

I'd particularly suggest you try to make the map look good WITHOUT any textures and distressing and then apply them separately only once the map is finished if you feel they really help, and only as much as is needed.

Another useful way of thinking is HOW the map was made. Have an idea of who the in setting cartographer was, what their goals were, what information was available to them, and technical capabilities in navigation, surveying, and image production. Try to keep things visually consistent. If two things were meant to be created the same way, they should look the same. Avoid mixing drawn elements that were drawn at different scales for instance (Your hill, tree, and city symbols were all clearly drawn separately or at different scales originally). Similarly, avoid mixing indications of sloppiness with indications of precision and care: rough watercolour tinting that perfectly stops at a drawn boundary for instance.

Be wary of adding formal map elements that indicate precision if you don't understand them. Graticules, checked neatlines, and even scale bars and compass roses all say things about the map and if you get them wrong, your map will just scream "FAKE!" to anyone who does understand them. Maps don't need these things to be maps. They are specific tools for specific types of map and getting them right requires understanding them. If you just want to make a picture that evokes a sense of "mapiness" and you don't care if people who know anything about maps cringe, then go ahead, but be aware of the limitations. If you were designing a 14th century sailing ship, and decided that it didn't look interesting or 'vehicular' enough and added turbojet engines pointing at the sails to increase the wind pushing them forward to make the ship faster, that's kind of what it's like to see a map that gets this sort of thing wrong, except that the self-blowing turbojet sailing ship is much more amusing than a map that says contradictory things about the shape of the planet.

A couple of other notes: Features crossing the neatline are bad. The point of the neatline is to show the extent of the map. There are very rare occasions when it's justifiable due to constraints on the available space and the geometry of the important features of the map, but it's one of those "you need to know and really understand the rule before you can justify breaking it" kinds of things. In particular, only the specific features that are important should cross, and they should cross OVER the neatline, not under. You should also work on your labelling. Good labelling if really hard. This paper by Eduard Imhof is a really good introduction to map labelling: http://www.mapgraphics.net/downloads...es_on_Maps.pdf

[Yusaku Asano]

Hai Etlik, really thank you for your guidance. It is more than i asked and i really appreciative it!
Your post is really timid because i was ready to show my map with some textures on it. After reading it, i'll take my time see the issues you bring on, reconsider some of my decisions, fix some elements and then re-post a version of my map.
Your input was really insightful and helpful!

[Yusaku Asano]

At last I have some time to work the map.
While i am fixing/re-evaluating my previous decisions, i have difficulties to find the right scale of the map elements. Hai-Etlik rightfully notes:

A Try to keep things visually consistent. If two things were meant to be created the same way, they should look the same. Avoid mixing drawn elements that were drawn at different scales for instance (Your hill, tree, and city symbols were all clearly drawn separately or at different scales originally).

What do you think is wrong in the map regarding the scaling of these elements (settlements, mountains, hills and trees)? The trees or the settlements should smaller? Something else?

Have in mind that the map is intented to be printed. Its size would be about 65x65 cm (22x22 inches or 6600x6600 pixes -300dpi).

Thank you again.

[Hai-Etlik]

At last I have some time to work the map.
While i am fixing/re-evaluating my previous decisions, i have difficulties to find the right scale of the map elements. Hai-Etlik rightfully notes:

What do you think is wrong in the map regarding the scaling of these elements (settlements, mountains, hills and trees)? The trees or the settlements should smaller? Something else?

The problem is that all your symbols look like they were drawn by different artists using different tools and working at different scales. You also have wild variation in the level of anti-aliasing (The blurriness along the edges of shapes that prevents them from looking jagged due to the pixel grid.) In some cases like the coastline and rivers, it's really blurry, while the point symbols vary and the text is quite sharp, then the graticule is razor sharp. In some cases you also use the same symbol, like the fort with the little banner, but at different scales which is also quite obvious as "that's been scaled up with a computer".

Here's an example to illustrate. There's a small mountain, and then both a bigger mountain, and the small symbol simply scaled up.

[Yusaku Asano]

First of all I want to thank again @Hai-Atlik for his comments and critique. They were really very helpful and insightful.

Here is the 2nd version of my map (one gamey with colors and borders and one without)

Things that i tried to fix:

a) Labeling. The paper was really very insightful. I didn't know there were so many rules behind labeling. Really changed the way my map looks.

b) Consistency. I tried to be more consistent to my choices.
i) All the shading of my elements is the same (thank you @DanielHasenbos).
ii) Also, there is no sharp and blurred elements on my map. All are a bit blurred (Some labels need to tone down the blurness).
iii) The map elements (trees, mountains, hills and towns) come from the same artist map-maker (ramah).
iv) I removed elements that don't fit with the atmosphere of my map like the compass rose, neatline, etc.
v) Scale. Here, still i am not sure if i got it right. Does the trees need to be smaller? Already the trees and towns are smaller than the default size of the brush.

c) Horror Vacui. I removed almost half of my towns and a number of other elements. I kept only the important ones and these that promote the story of my map.

d) As Hai-Etlik suggested i was very carefull with my distress textures. Right now i have put distress only in the colored map along the edges and in the sea.

While the initial post of my map was about the dullness or not of my map, I understood that i had made a number fundamental mistakes. I am sure still have some more.

Playing with the colors of the sea/kingdoms and the contrast/opacity of various layers i think the map now looks less dull and more "alive".


Again, any comment, note and critique is more than welcome.

[Eld]

I like the sea color, it looks very good. Overall, the colors make it look much more vivid.

I'd suggest that you decrease the bluriness of the labels and city symbols. The meaning of labels is to name things so they need to be readable. The bluriness of the writing decreases the legibility and I think that labels are prettiest if they fulfill their function. If trees and mountains and such elements are a bit blury, that's no problem, one could still identify them.

About the scale of the elements: In my opinion you could make the trees a bit smaller but that's a matter of taste. Trees and mountains on such a style are in the end symbols and not exact representatives of the "real" mountains and trees of that world. And as symbols their function is to inform the reader that there are mountains and symbols. So they are pretty if they serve their function and fit in the overall style of your map.