Arinthel - Arhia (WIP)
Over on the wonderful site of World Anvil they are currently having a community challenge the "Call of Cartography"! This challenge is to map out a region of your world and to write an article (2.5k words) about points of interest etc. And so it has given me the motivation needed to get working on the map for my world Arinthel, starting with the continent Arhia. This is the first part I've been working on today in Wonderdraft but planning on working between WD and Photoshop. I have a fun idea to make it more interesting (hopefully!), but I'm unsure yet as to how it will look and if it will work okay. But shall keep this thread open to keep you posted with the progress!
Thanks for looking!(And I hope you're all staying safe and sane out there!) - AP.
Note: this is just a screenshot, so apologies if it's poor quality. Let me know if it's an issue and I will save a JPG copy to share instead.
Looks like a good start to me. I'm curious about the development, and where you're going to use Photoshop instead of Wonderdraft. And of course I'm looking forward to see your idea to make it more special.
How much time do you have for this challenge?
The quality seems to be ok for a preview step, just the file size is a little bit bigger than it has to be. I don't know if people use this forum with mobile devices, but I always try to keep the files small so it doesn't cost too much traffic.
Thanks!Originally Posted by Yrda
Looks like a good start to me. I'm curious about the development, and where you're going to use Photoshop instead of Wonderdraft. And of course I'm looking forward to see your idea to make it more special.
How much time do you have for this challenge?
The quality seems to be ok for a preview step, just the file size is a little bit bigger than it has to be. I don't know if people use this forum with mobile devices, but I always try to keep the files small so it doesn't cost too much traffic.
The challenge timeline:
March 7th - April 4th Competition is active and opened!
April 4th - April 11th Sharing period, give feedback, make minor edits.
April 11th - April 25th Adjudication and Judging
May 9th Winner Announcement Date! (Subject to change)
Ah, okay thank you! I had hoped taking a screenshot would have cut down on the file size, but obviously not! I'm not entirely sure how to make it smaller, to be honest. Any tips would be appreciated so I can keep the next preview steps smaller too!
So here's an update which reveals my thinking to make it different!
The line work is just a rough at the moment with scribbles to remind me where to place the woods/forest. Inspired by the maps in Civ 6 and the maps you can get to scratch off where you have been in the world. The underlying artwork will be in colour. I've also realised that for this challenge I'm going to have to zoom in a lot more and focus on a region as this is a continent map! And they want a region, so will focus on a specific region of Dosharia (the 'revealed' country). So much work to do! Here's hoping I've not bitten off more than I can chew...
Another update!
Not gonna lie, I'm really unsure about it at the moment. I mean, I love the different styles so far, I'm just not sure they work well together... Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance...
Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done. I'm hoping as I add more detail to fill it out it will gradually look better.
Last edited by AP.; 03-19-2020 at 03:56 PM.
I like both styles, but I'm not that sure about the "ripping off"-story. Ripping off a picture and finding another picture beneath can tell an interesting story, but I think it works better if the picture hides something completely else.
This way, it feels like the drawing should have been there first, and then be filled with color. So it feels a bit wrong to me that the color is below the more abstract "sketch". It would feel more natural if the colors are painted in (with subtle brush strokes showing at the outer edges), or if the green is growing on the sketch, like real plants, and the water fills the sketch like spilled coffee would. Instead of destroying/ripping apart your nice map, it could be filled with life. I'm just thinking ... I don't want to destroy your story or idea, I hope these ideas and thoughts help.
About the filesize:
I like to use the free tool XnView for saving and compressing images and would recommend it.
Last edited by Yrda; 03-20-2020 at 06:41 AM. Reason: typo
Don't worry! You're not destroying anything.
For the challenge I'm thinking I will stick with Wonderdraft as it's so much quicker, then eventually I will create my own version to update it with. I like what I've started so can continue with that at a later stage!
Ah thanks!
Still unsure if I'm using XnView right....but took a screenshot and cropped it in there, so might be okay? Let me know if not.
Coloured in Wonderdraft. And cropped out the border and took away the compass and windrose as they were starting to feel "in the way".
Well, I guess you could try to just save a jpg instead. With XnView, I opened your map (the complete one with the frame) and saved it via File > Save as > JPG, with JPG Settings: Quality 80, and reduced the size from over 1mb to 103kb.
The quality seemed a bit better (less compression artifacts) than in your last jpg. Maybe you want to check the quality settings before saving jpgs.
But let's talk about the map itself again - at the bottom the island almost touches the border, I'd give it a bit more space there (composition wise).
Thanks for the tip Yrda! Sorry I'm not so good when it comes to saving and editing files.
But yes, back to the map. As you can see, I have created a Detail Map in Wonderdraft and will continue to work on that. Now I just need to add more detail and think up some names. Oh and the previous image was a cropped screenshot, rather than actually cropping the map so won't be so bad for the composition!
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