Bog Marsh - Franck's first map!

[LunaticDesign]

That is really awesome! What did you use to color the map with?

[Tiana]

Oh my gawd. (nightmares) There are so many lil dead people. o_o O_O o_o

aaaaaaaand that's it!

Hope you keep drawing maps.

To non-destructively experiment with merging two layers together while still having parts show through, you could use layer styles. Multiply lets only the darks through, for example. Screen lets only the lights through. Overlay, hard light, and soft light all have excellent applications for lighting effects. Darker means that it will show through if the color on the layer set to 'darker' is darker than the color underneath. Lighter does the opposite thing. Also potentially useful for bringing two images together. You could also use layer masks to make it so only parts of a layer show but the art stays intact (but I'm not experienced in this, since I usually create a clipping mask layer instead for a similar effect that's edited in a different fashion). These could let you, say, have texture only show up in a certain spot (though I think Photoshop has 'texture fill' too which would work for that).

Your way works, but if you want it to be editable in the future, these techniques keep the art intact!

Great map.

[KMAlexander]

To tack on to what Tiana said, you could also consider a layer mask.
Easy way to paint out what you want to be transparent.

[arsheesh]

These are all really nice. Great work especially on the inking.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[FantasyFernweh]

Thanks everyone for the comments!

For the map variations, I'm creating the separate assets/objects by hand, then scanning in and editing them into the map scene via Photoshop. I'm also changing the map layer colors just by Photoshop (layers and masks are my friend!). I think by hand painting the background, it made altering the colors (via Adjustment Layer) relatively seamless. The goal is to make it NOT look like it's been Photoshopped. A bit of sleight of hand there, but eh.

Here are some images of the assets/objects I created for the map variations. My hope is that I can reuse them in other maps too!

[JoshStolarz]

These are all excellent, and I love the variations you are putting on the map with different objects. You really have an appealing style

- Josh

[Badger]

Great stuff! So many talented artists at the guild! Those are outstanding maps and assets and yes, layers and masks are our friends especially masks!

Del