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Thread: Old School Style Map - The Kingdom

  1. #1
    Guild Apprentice Malakor's Avatar
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    Wip Old School Style Map - The Kingdom

    I'm trying to figure out what I want to run the next time I get time to run a game, and I usually start with my maps.

    I've been doing my maps by hand, and then with the DOS (later Windows) version of CC, and then with Illustrator and Photoshop over the years, but even when I've created really 'pretty' and detailed full colored, textured maps, I've not been 100% happy with them. There is just something about the 'old-school' or hand-drawn style that I find appealing, so that's what I'm going to try and re-create in this map.

    If I can't wind up making myself happy with this version, I'm probably going to go back to doing them by hand, and possibly scanning them in afterwards.

    I found a Tutorial by RPGMapmaker for how to do custom mountain brushes with PS. I'm familiar with making custom brushes, but I really liked the style he showed in his Tutorial (Thank you Kindly sir, and I hit your rep button while I was there).

    Anywho. . . It inspired me to create a set of brushes tonight and start on my map.

    The below is what I put Together in about 4 hours.

    Everything to this point has been done in Photoshop, with lot's o' layers (I'm very fond of layers), but of course the link is a flattened version of what I'm currently working on.

    I'm putting off the rivers til I read a few of the river tutorials, because Rivers have always been a bit of a weak point for me.

    This is slightly reduced in size for uploading. The original I'm working on is set up to be 24x18 at 300 dpi

    C&C is welcome.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	The-Kingdom_overview_3000x2250.jpg 
Views:	715 
Size:	1.99 MB 
ID:	9184  
    \"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.\"
    - Charles Bukowski

  2. #2

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    What do the lines mean? They can't be latitude/longitude 'cause the compass doesn't point toward the center.

    Very nice style--I like it already!
    Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
    http://www.bryanray.name

  3. #3

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    Perhaps they use radians for their coordinate system? That would break down at the other end of the world, but for scales like this it would work, especially if they defined a certain location as the center of the world (one of those mountains, perhaps?).

    I enjoy the style, but the southwestern islands just don't seem to work. The lake in the middle of a circular mountain range is also a bit odd, but it could happen, I suppose.

  4. #4
    Guild Journeyer
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    i like the map, i too am starting to miss my old hand drawn maps. All that glitters is not grand as they say. The only point of suggestion i would have is to make a couple more of each type of brush. when you repeat the same pattern over and over it can become noticeable, and the human mind has an annoying habit to create/fill in patterns where there is none, thus making the map look in-organic. The tree brush pattern i think is the biggest offencer, at least add in a couple indivitual trees to break it up.

  5. #5
    Guild Artisan Hoel's Avatar
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    I like it. Will there be color?

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    This has started out very nice.

    The only thing that kind of 'jumps out at me' is the repetitive map symbols - try and get couple different of each type (primarily mountains and forest) and mix them up a bit.
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.



  7. #7
    Guild Apprentice Malakor's Avatar
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    Thanks for the comments.

    The Lines actually don't have a meaning at the moment, I added them last night just before I posted the map and went to bed to see how they would look.

    I hate my trees

    I want to figure out a better way to represent my forests as I go, I tried a tutorial I saw on here (don't remember whose it was) using a brush style in PS that I liked, but didn't quite fit with this style.

    I'll add some more variation to the mountains (and maybe that would help with my forest problem as well) this evening when I get home, I see what you guys are saying about the repetition (I'm happy with the mountain style in general, so some variants in the same style would prolly do the trick)

    I'll probably do a colorized version once I'm finished, yes.

    Thanks for the C&C

    Oh, the Southwestern Islands are actually supposed to represent an area that was recently flooded/taken over by swampland (a magical bit of mischief by local villains [snakepeople]) .
    \"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.\"
    - Charles Bukowski

  8. #8
    Community Leader Gandwarf's Avatar
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    Actually, I think your trees look quite all right. But as Lathorien says you might want to add a couple more of each type of brush. The forests look really artificial right now as it's a repeating pattern of the same trees. You'll need to place some loose trees for example to make it look better I think. Otherwise, cool map.
    Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.

    Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...

  9. #9
    Guild Apprentice Malakor's Avatar
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    Lake in the circle of mountains?

    This confused me at first, if you mean the big spot in the center, that is supposed to be (going to be) a canyon/rift in the ground type area.

    Guess I should darken up the bottom so it looks like it has some depth.

    Or change the way I draw it
    \"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.\"
    - Charles Bukowski

  10. #10
    Guild Apprentice Malakor's Avatar
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    Wip

    I got a few minutes free after lunch (ok, I TOOK a few minutes ) and made a handful of tree and mountain brushes, including a new tree cluster with the various trees in it.

    The attached is a test cluster of mountains and trees.

    How does this compare to those on the original map?

    Think this will work better? (I'll use these in conjunction with the brushes I made last night at home, I saved each of the PSD files as I made these brushes)
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Tree-Test.jpg 
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ID:	9204  
    \"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.\"
    - Charles Bukowski

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