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Thread: Skullkickers World Map

  1. #1
    Professional Artist Guild Supporter Schley's Avatar
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    Default Skullkickers World Map

    Here's a poster map of the world of "Skullkickers" I recently completed in collaboration with author Jim Zubkavich. It illustrate his darkly humorous fantasy series Skullkickers, published by Image Comics.

    I'm really enjoying forced perspective and isometric mapping styles recently. I'm also enjoying a move towards a more classic illustration style while giving my inks and color washes a little more freedom and spontaneity.

    As for process, my inks and colors are technically fairly simple. For the line work, in Photoshop I just set my pressure to control minimum diameter and turn on dual brush to get a nice sharp tip. Beyond a few other setting tweaks, it's all in the wrist. For my color layers, I like to start with a loose and broad application of my principal colors just to fill and tint the background parchment. If you set the property of a layer of loosely painted base colors to multiply and then paint with similar colors to a normal layer on top, it can give a nice naturalistic bleed transition. Beyond that, I just try to mix up my brush tips and keep the painting energetic, refining the details towards the end. I also tend to frequently switch my brush and layer settings from normal to hard light or multiply depending on whether I'm shading or highlighting an area.

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  2. #2
    Community Leader Jaxilon's Avatar
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    Love the style. Thanks for mentioning a bit on how you do your work. I use multiply a lot myself but I will have to try it your way as I tend to duplicate and multiply which doesn't get the same effect.
    “When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden

    * Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt

  3. #3
    Guild Novice bcholmes's Avatar
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    Wow. This is gorgeous!

  4. #4
    Guild Member Facebook Connected Alex's Avatar
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    Lovely style there! I just adore how you made the trees/forests, simply amazing!

    That is a fine map. Take some rep!

    EDIT:
    Oh man, have to spread first.

  5. #5
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    This is one of those maps where I immediately think to myself, not my style but friggin beautiful! Admittedly, friggin may not be the actual word. Impressive work with a heckuva style.

  6. #6
    Guild Adept Slylok's Avatar
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    really like this one.
    Our sense of the stability of the earth is an illusion due to the shortness of our lives.
    - Neil deGrasse Tyson


  7. #7
    Community Leader jfrazierjr's Avatar
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    I saw this the other day via a link to either you site or g+(more likely), and LOVED the names of the places. Dem Mountains, Hither, Yon, Little Wet, Some Wet, All Wet, Day'n Jur Mountains, etc. That all cracked me up! I was just hoping to see a high res so I could read all of the names when I first saw it, and now that you posted here, it is higher res, so THANKS for uploading it here...

    Oh, and the scale bar is just frickin awesome!
    My Finished Maps
    Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
    My Tutorials:
    Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
    How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
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    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

  8. #8
    Guild Journeyer Guild Sponsor Klaus van der Kroft's Avatar
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    One of my favourites so far. Fantastic style indeed!

    Have some reputation.

  9. #9
    Community Leader Lukc's Avatar
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    I really want to pick your brain on what kind of brush settings you use for the painting, to get the digital pens and inks looking so, well, non-digital!

  10. #10
    Guild Expert Ramah's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jfrazierjr View Post
    I saw this the other day via a link to either you site or g+(more likely), and LOVED the names of the places. Dem Mountains, Hither, Yon, Little Wet, Some Wet, All Wet, Day'n Jur Mountains, etc. That all cracked me up! I was just hoping to see a high res so I could read all of the names when I first saw it, and now that you posted here, it is higher res, so THANKS for uploading it here...

    Oh, and the scale bar is just frickin awesome!
    I'm the other way. I love the map style but those names are just awful. But then I am particularly picky when it comes to "comedy." It reminds me of those Terry Prachett wannabe authors who write books with terrible names based around a pun.
    Royal: I'm very sorry for your loss, your mother was a terribly attractive woman.


    My Cartographer's Guild maps: Finished Maps


    More maps viewable at my DeviantArt page: Ramah-Palmer DeviantArt

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