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Terra'Caliga
First I would like to preface with, this is most definitely a work in progress and progress is going to be very slow. Due to circumstances outside of my control the next few months I only have access to my Chromebook, so all of this is running CC3+ via Wine. The technical frustrations have been well... frustrating to say the least.
This is an island for a campaign my wife is running. This island takes place in a low-magic setting due to certain circumstances on the island causing magic to die out. There are going to be inconsistencies with how the biomes of the island, but she assures me that they have a storyboard reason and all will be revealed in time. The southern portion that is a darker green has been unexplored, so there is no real detail, and only mystery as to what is there.
This is based off of an old map that she drew way before we ever met and has been wanting to re-make it for some time now, and I have been given the go ahead to just run with it. I don't plan on keeping any of the symbols that are in place as they will be drawn in later via either photoshop or illustrator. What I have here is the basic outline of the map, and I plan on making it look a bit nicer before I attempt hand-drawing in the details. One idea I had was making this a B&W map and either inking the details in after.
Any and all critiques and criticisms are welcome!
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Last edited by GSEC; 03-18-2018 at 06:49 AM.
It is scaled in kilometers currently but that is subject to change later on.Originally Posted by GSEC
I pointed out the inconsistency with the lake and the rivers the lead to it, however, it is intended to be that way. I can only make assumptions at this point as to why. The group and I have not gotten that far in the campaign to even know that it is unnatural. When I add new rivers they will indeed flow how they should.
Now that I'm not actually dealing with a system not designed for doing anything other than perusing the web, I finally have an update. Decided that to make it black and white. The main land mass is about 1.5k by 800 miles or about 3.1m km^2.
I have have started toying around with adding contour lines on the islands to the northeast, however I'm not sure how extensive I should go with it. The shelf is suppose to extend well beyond the bounds of the map and is so shallow that only skiff like ships don't bottom out. Sort of isolating them from the rest of the world.
To expand on the lake/rivers attached to it, on this island it is considered normal to the local populous that water just flows to the lake and not the ocean. Other rivers, more on the outline areas and to the south will flow as reality would dictate, I just haven'd added them yet.
If anyone knows a good way, in either CC3 or Illustrator to give the large white space in the south a "Fog Of War" feeling I'm open to advice. That area is completely unexplored for various reasons, and most iterations of the map just have it completely forested off. To me that seems like the easy way to do it, but I want to do something a little more creative.
### Latest WIP ###
Changed it up again. After about 4 or 5 days of going through the Tome of Ultimate Mapping, I understand why people swear by it for CC3. Learned a lot from it so far and am trying to apply that to the new version of the map.
The coast isn't done yet it's only there as a base. I working on placing the mountains and adding in a water layer under them to make it feel as though they are coming out of shallow water and not out of the landmass.
As always open to suggestions and advice.
### Latest WIP ###
I like what you've done so far.
In the thumbnail, the coastal shelf looks a little too rectangular, but when the I open the picture itself at full resolution, that doesn't seem to be the case - I don't know if you want to make it less rectangular or leave it, but I thought I'd point it out. I'm also intrigued by the mountains as they seem to be very close to the shoreline; it does look to me more like they are coming out of the land mass rather than from shallow water - except on very close inspection. I'm not sure how to make them look more like they are coming out of the water, maybe someone wiser than me in the way of maps could offer you some advice. The mountains and hills themselves are very nicely drawn.
I’d ask Mouse about the shallow water technique that she uses in cc3. I’ve never seen any one else do it better, hopefully she’ll see this and offer some advice because those mountains really would look cool coming out of the water like that.
I had to step away from the coastline for a couple reasons, most of which is experience and trying to learn how the program works and the other CC3+ not being able to read my mind and just make it happen.
Below is my latest WIP without the coastline and with my reference showing the how the sea/coast is suppose to look. Ultimately my plan was to progressively darken the deeper areas as each layer of shading gets stacked on. The issue I was running into though was, as I was doing this was creating hard lines I couldn't get out with sheet effects. Which I am highly confident is inexperience on my end.
As for the mountains, the best I was able to come up with was a new layer with the same coastline coloring with an edge fade and a lightening blend. It is suppose to be reminiscent of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam to an extent. Not really small island but mountainy... if that even is a word.
### Latest WIP ###
