"The Spider's Nest" - inked-in WIP

[Chris Lewis]

It's one of Torstan's maps.

Thank you for posting this J.Edward

[Chris Lewis]

Man! That's looks awesome for using a mouse!
The Ember into Ashes map is on of my favorites ever, and I often try to replicate the style (mostly unsuccessfully).
I think if you want to make maps like this my advice would be, 1. Get a drawing tablet (if you can) 2. Go through all of the tutorials on Fantastic Maps many times 3. Practice, practice, PRACTICE!
Drawing tablets are extremely useful, and I would highly recommend getting one, if that's a possibility for you.

The background texture looks a bit low quality, but that's something you could easily fix.

Thank you, Josiah. I did the linework using pencil/pen then took a picture of it using my phone and imported it into GIMP. I have been looking at tablets but know I need to become proficient with GIMP before I "deserve" to get one...that's my way of justifying it anyways

For the background I just did a drag/drop from a texture I saved from deviantart. I wouldn't even know how to make it of higher quality but would be happy to make this another step for a future update.

Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts. I perused through your portfolio and you have a beautiful style. Thank you for sharing.

[Chris Lewis]

I think you're headed in the right direction, I agree with everything Josiah said especially the part about getting a graphics tablet, and going through all the tutorials on fantasticmaps.

The water looks good from afar, but like Josiah said a higher resolution on the texture would improve it when viewing up close...I like the look you've achieved with the colour tho, it looks good....Definitly don't trash this, it's a very good first try, and any issues you're having can be resolved with practice, and giving yourself the chance to move forward by not getting bogged down by beginners woes. It takes time to learn these programmes, they can be very frustrating even when you've used them for a long time.

I'm curious, what layer are you trying to put the wave lines on, I don't see it in you're screen shot.

Thank you for taking your time to comment kacey. I appreciate your thoughts. To answer your question, I thought to put the wave lines on the Ocean ("Clipboard") layer would make the most sense, but should I create a separate layer for them? I'm still running into the issue of not being able to ink a lighter color over them, if that makes any sense?

[Abu Lafia]

Hey Chris, you "ninjaed" a longer comment on the issue, while i was taking screenshots in gimp to make it better to grasp... I like the attitude of "deserving your tablet" by going through the hard school of working with the mouse and the plentyful stuff gimp has to offer... I'll post it here soon...

[Abu Lafia]

Hey Chris, first of all i think your inked linework is absolutely wonderful and really something you can/should build on. As Max once said (iirc): "in a b/w map you have no colours to hide behind" and i think your linework really don't need to hide! Your linework will always be the "skeleton" so to speak (and it's a well shaped one in my view ), and all the fancy things you can do with gimp/ps should be directed onto fleshing this skeleton out or "clothing" it to accentuate its form.
I know getting used to gimp (as with any complex programs) can be a long frustrating path, but in my view you have one huge advantage that should make your journey into gimp far more relaxed: The beauty of your mapwork does not depend on gimp/digital colouring!
At this stage your original b/w drawing is (yet!) aesthetically more pleasing than the colored version in my view.
If you're aiming to achieve the look of the gorgeous works by Caenwyr and and Torstan (not really sure if you only meant the coastal waters of the referred works?), i can only agree with Josiah and Kacey that there's no way around a tablet since both their works are made entirely digital (as far as i can see) and couldn't have been made this way without one (or only with hundreds of hours of work). But regardless if you're aiming for these styles or maybe want to develop your own, it's absolutely worth the investment and someone with your drawing skills will surely make good use of it. . Ofc my whole textwall above was intended to encourage you to think seriously about the latter option!
The question is, whether you want to use gimp (or PS, etc.) as a substitute for your pens and paper, which is only achievable with a tablet i think, or only as an addition to your set of tools for coloring, labelling, etc. which is absolutely doable (if not preferable) with just a mouse?

Since you're working with a mouse atm, i try to give you some ideas how to achieve the things you're aiming for. It's the way i would do it and i bet there are many other and better ways still.

===DISCLAIMER===
MAKE SURE TO SAVE YOUR WORK BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING I SUGGEST BELOW OR WORK WITH A COPY OF YOUR ORIGINAL PROJECT!

What I want to achieve but haven't been able to:

- Add waves to the coast. Currently they're black and I can't seem to draw over them to make them lighter.
I work with gimp for two years now, but i really haven't found a "clean" way to do this yet! Maybe a saviour will come to this thread and spread her or his wisdom after i showed you the "messy" way.
The problem is, that i found it impossible to just "colourize" a drawn black "element" in gimp via the functions of your "Colors" menu. I personally like to have coastal waves/wavelines in white (on a seperate layer) set to "overlay" on the blue sea. Since you already have your nice wavelines already, you could just isolate them (with the free select tool and then cut the selection and then paste it into a new layer) and then "Color" --> "Invert" the color of your new waveline Layer (black) to white. After that set the layermode to overlay or experiment with other layermodes.
In these Screenshots of the example, i used a somewhat different ordering of my layers (the way i used to do it in my maps often) but i hope you get the point i wanted to make. I Usually start with a parchment like Background Layer. On top of it comes the rest. The Linework Layer is best on top of it all.


select the wavelines with your free select tool

paste the cutted selection into a new layer ("Waves") and "Invert" it as mentioned above.

This is an "in-between" step, since i forgot to add a water layer... XD
How i do it: Grap your "Fuzzy select tool and select the space around your landmass. Set the threshold of your tool rather high or "Selct"--> "Grow" your selection by some px until it overlaps with your coastline. Maybe "Select"-->"Save to Channel" your selection, to work with it later...

Create a new Layer ("Water"), choose a nice blueish color and "Bucket Fill" your selection with it. Set the Layermode to "Multiply" (or whatever you prefer) and set it to ~75%
Now you can set the Layermode of your "Waves" layer to "Overlay", and experiment with the opacity. Make sure the Layer is above the "Water" Layer.

- "Fade" the ocean around the coastal regions to signify shallower waters and make the land pop. I also haven't been successful with adding different "ocean" layers and adjusting the opacity to achieve different tones as several artists have suggested in other threads.
- Learn how to draw tapered rivers and fix the horrid job I did on the lake in the middle.

These other Questions have to wait a bit (or look at the tutorial (step 8 ) i gave you (here your saved selection of your watermass/landmass will come in handy ), it's rather late , but i hope it was helpful so far.
Cheers,
AL

[Ilanthar]

I like your moutains, they seems to be an excellent start. With more details and the shading, you will certainly make them really cool. And I see that Abu is delivering better explanation than I could (since I'm not really a Gimp user), so, looking forward to see your progress !

[Chris Lewis]

Abu, thank you very much for the detailed explanation. I've spent hours this morning trying to recreate your steps from the ground up so your efforts weren't in vain, but I fear I'm stuck at the stage of pasting the cut waves...it seems I'm not picking the correct Paste option bc the selection is pasted as a Floating Selection (see last image) and not allowing me to Invert the colors. I tried to Anchor the layer but then it merges with the Linework layer and doesn't let me keep a separate Waves layer.When I "paste as a new layer" I can't invert the colors either. Very frustrated bc I can't seem to get paste this rudimentary step. I also inserted the ocean layer as you said.

I figured I'd throw it back to you so you can look at the steps I took and hopefully tell me what I'm doing wrong.
These are the steps I took:

1. Open inked-in linework image > Rename layer to "linework" > crop image

2. Drag/drop parchment texture into Layers tab > Make bottom layer

3. Change "linework" layer mode to multiply

4. Add new layer "ocean" > choose blue for foreground > Bucket fill > Set layer to multiply >Opacity 75.0>
reposition layer above "parchment" layer

5. On "linework" layer > Free Select Tool > Select waves > Cut > Paste (Floating Selection (Pasted Layer))

[Chris Lewis]

I like your moutains, they seems to be an excellent start. With more details and the shading, you will certainly make them really cool. And I see that Abu is delivering better explanation than I could (since I'm not really a Gimp user), so, looking forward to see your progress !

Thank you, Ilanthar. I appreciate your compliments. Unfortunately I exported the file as a jpeg (instead of taking a screenshot) so I could post it to the forum, so I "lost" my work to that point. I started from scratch to work on the mechanics of Abu's post, not liking my results.

[Abu Lafia]

Hey Chris, in this case you have to just "Create an new Layer" (the blank sheet symbol on the far left right beneath your layer window ) this way the floating selection is made into a new layer. I thought it would work by cutting it and then "Edit"--> "Paste as" --> "Into New Layer" but i haven't wrote it down clearly. Sorry, it's one of the things i do fairly automatic and haven't thought of mentioning in the steps... Hope it works now

Ah, ok i got the problem now: When you "Paste as new layer" The original selection stays where it was. You need to deselect by "Select" --> "None" first, after that you can invert the layers' color ... as said it's sometimes a tricky and painful way ...

Edit2: It seems one effect of these different paste options is, that with the "Floating Selection" to new layer option (the one i use mostly) the original selection is "deselected" automatically and you can work on the whole layer as you wish. With the "Paste as new layer" option, as mentioned, the original selection stays and the new (automatically cropped) layer is inserted into the image on the top left corner. If you do not deselect the selection, the "Invert" function is only applied to the selected area, where is nothing left to apply it. Yeah, there are some strange things to keep in mind when working with gimp...
On a general note: If you try to draw or do anything and it doesn't seem to work properly, it's always good to check whether you selected the right layer, or if there is a selection around somewhere that you need to deselect/adjust first.

[Chris Lewis]

Yes that makes sense AL. Unfortunately all I could achieve was this when I inverted my colors.


I think it has something to do with me importing the picture I took of my map - it just won't let me invert the colors no matter what I do. It seems that when I draw a landmass and waves using the pen tool (on a transparent layer), only then am I able to achieve the results you described above