Commission - Arkaias

[ChickPea]

Gorgeous work, Caenwyr!

[Greg]

Lovely looking work so far! The play of light and darkness really lends the maps a sense of atmosphere, and quite foreboding in some ways. I look forwards to where you take this, though as others have said, it's already shaping up nicely!

[Caenwyr]

Thanks for the compliments guys! As always, your comments and suggestions are a big boost - I just love the positive attitude of this community. Thanks again!

Also, I have a (rather smallish) update for you guys. Had some Photoshop trouble over the weekend which beat my progress into the mud, which means I spent most of my time on this map either yelling at the screen or looking for an explanation. Mostly yelling. But I did find what was wrong eventually. I had started some preliminary labeling - just a handful of placenames really - and there must have been an issue with that, because suddenly the file size exploded and all pen work got super slow. To be honest, it took me until Monday evening before I found it. So I removed the type layers, saved and closed the file and lo and behold, it shrunk to a more acceptable size and my pen started flying over the map again. Huzaah!

So yeah, not too much progress. I did do the lighting of the NE mountains however, and added a compass, a web of rhumb lines and a touch of blotchiness to the sea. Did some research for the decorative elements as well, but these are for another update. What I can show you right now is this:

[ThomasR]

It's a marvelous piece and I really envy your shading skills. You do wonders with the terrain making it pop as if it were carved on velum. Impressive !

[Tom]

Very nice work Caenwyr! As I already said, your linework is really good, as your shadows and color choice!!
The only "critique" I could do is that the mountains doesn't seems much realistic to me ( I mean their placement, not the way you drawn them, that's is awesome) they are too scattered around.. but I realize that is a commissioned piece, and anyway is just a personal opinion Please keep up the great job!

[Caenwyr]

Very nice work Caenwyr! As I already said, your linework is really good, as your shadows and color choice!!
The only "critique" I could do is that the mountains doesn't seems much realistic to me ( I mean their placement, not the way you drawn them, that's is awesome) they are too scattered around.. but I realize that is a commissioned piece, and anyway is just a personal opinion Please keep up the great job!

Thanks Tom! About those mountains, do you mean the placement of the individual mountains within their respective mountain chains? Or the distribution of the chains? The client wanted a really mountainous map so I went crazy with them, but I can imagine it might look a bit 'heavy' to some.

Thanks for your critique!

[Tom]

I was talking about the amount of them and the disposition of the chains, but as I said it's not you, and after another look it's not bad at all
It's a fantasy world I presume and the amount of mountains and the shape of coasts add that bit of "dramatization" that's perfect!

[arsheesh]

Looking really nice! The compass rose seems a bit too dark though.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Warlin]

Great work Caenwyr. Your shading skills are wonderfull and the way you build the coastline make the all map a twisted perspective really impressive.
For the mountains, imo if you want to make them more reallystic you should vary the size of the different massif and the high of the individual summits. For me the global feeling when i consider them is that they are too much regulary disposed.

[ThomasR]

I think Warlin nailed it. Your gorgeous mountain could use a little bit of variation, they'd feel more alive.