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Thread: First Map - First Post!

  1. #1

    Post First Map - First Post!

    Hey everyone!

    It feels good to have my first post written on these wonderful forums with something to show ya guys! I have already found some useful information around and I am sure there's still something more to 'extract', so to say, from here!

    Well, this is the first map I've ever created! It took me about 10-12 hours to fully create it. The whole process of creating it helped me a lot in 'mastering' different techniques and achieving my own art style, so I am pretty much pleased with what it turned out to be!

    This is actually the World Map for my online RPG Project, in which I am working alone for now...anyway...just in case any one is wandering, I created it using Paint.NET and Auto Realm (as well as a package of fully free of use RPG map symbols, with the permission of their author).
    I've been using Paint.NET for about 3 weeks all in all and Auto Realm...well, I downloaded it 3 days ago.

    If there's anyone interested in how is anything made, let me know, I will be glad to share with you guys....

    So, here it is...



    Any comments and/or critics are welcome... I would be happy to hear some opinions!

    Thanks a lot!

    Keni

    P.S. At the moment I am working on my second map (again for my project) which will be of one of the kingdoms and its surrounding areas!
    Last edited by Keni; 05-05-2009 at 11:38 AM.

  2. #2

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    That's a really great individual style! I particularly like the mountains. I think with a bit more work it could be a winner.

    Here are the improvements (remember they are only improvements if you agree with them and help to achieve the style that you want) that I would suggest.

    I think you've tried to cramp too many different styles into one map and the legibility of the map suffers for it. You should be able to look at the map and understand how it works at a glance, but with this one, it's more difficult and the viewer has to work at it:

    - The scaling of the buildings is a little offputting...individual houses are fine to define the size of a city or habitation even if they are oversized, but the perimeter of the habitation is huge if this is a continental map. We don't know if this is meant to be one mega city or a place where there are many varying cities, or where there is habitation generally.

    On the other hand the tent on the bottom left with the fire works for me...we know there's a camp of some sort there. It's legible as is the big wall with the castle and the lighthouse....made large because they're important features but we know there's only one of them.

    On the bottom right hand side of the map you've got houses in the 'lava' area, which again are illegible for the reasons given above, and the colours (I'm sorry) clash horribly.

    So what to do?

    I think it would work wonders for your map if you used colours that worked for you rather than dropping in symbols where you may not have any choice about the colour that they are. Go onto the web and look up colour theory..it will really pay dividends, especially on figurative maps like yours. At the moment you have so many colours fighting with each other on the map there is no dominant mood to it.

    I don't want to be too critical and I'm trying to help, particularly given the amount of time you have spent on this map, as I said, the bones are there but with more understanding it could be utterly fantastic.

    My main point is make it legible. To do this, use colour, size, shape and composition.

    Hope this helps and welcome to the guild!

  3. #3
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    I, too, think that this is a cool style. My thoughts are that the houses should look more like the castle, more of an elevation/side view rather than a top down/satellite view. The trees should probably also be more of a hand-drawn style rather than a brush or stamp. The easiest fix for that would be to add a black stroke around them but I think that still might be lacking character. The bottom right looks over-saturated, almost like going for an antique style on an otherwise colorful cartoony map. I really like the overall look, with the heavy lines and fun colors and it's my opinion that the rest of the map should look that way as well. It's a really good start and just a couple of lil changes would make it awesome. Good job, though, and I really like where it's going.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

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