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Thread: May/June Light Entry: The Yawning Straight and Environs

  1. #1
    Software Dev/Rep Hai-Etlik's Avatar
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    Post May/June Light Entry: The Yawning Strait and Environs

    My first serious original map. All done in Inkscape. And yes, it's meant to be just black and white.

    The typeface is Junius-Unicode (Junicode)
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    Community Leader Gandwarf's Avatar
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    I like it, have some rep!
    I like the different symbols you used and the layout of the terrain.

    Now, for some critique:

    - The map is a bit crowded at the moment. There's a lot of symbols and lines and text. Sometimes less is better.
    - The mountain ranges are thin, you might experiment with placing a few mountain symbols next to each other.

    Anyway, it's really a cool map!
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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    Quite nice!
    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.



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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    For a light challenge it looks pretty darn sweet. As you progress, you might want to add more, and different, mountain shapes instead of just repeating a few, same for the trees. For now, though, this is very nice. Good job and do more
    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.
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    Guild Journeyer msa's Avatar
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    I'm with everyone else--very nice map, same critiques. My one original suggestion is you might try using a lighter shade of gray for some of the map features (not the font) and see how it looks. It might look extra crowded because it is such a bold dark color, and a little fade might give it a less crowded feel. (I may be totally wrong, fyi)

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    Making the font sizes of the text smaller, while spacing out the characters a bit, may help to reduce the "crowding".

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    Guild Journeyer Zar Peter's Avatar
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    I really like the look of the map. The main things which are in need of improvement are already mentioned.

    The only thing I have is a spelling issue... you are writing mountians instead of mountains (That is if it isn't intentional and in the language of the mapmaker mountains are spelled that way )
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    Software Dev/Rep Hai-Etlik's Avatar
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    Thanks for the comments everyone. Here's a revised version.

    I was aiming for an overall 'cluttered' look though I'll admit I may have gone overboard. I've given in and included some grey. I've also improved the mountains and increased the number of unique mountains from 7 to 12.

    I've also started using the tweak tool a LOT.
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  10. #10
    Guild Journeyer msa's Avatar
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    I know I suggested going gray, but now that you've done it I don't feel like it made much difference. Sorry for the bad advice Perhaps another alternative is to go gray on the forests and black on the mountains. Having some color differential between the two might make it easier to separate them in the mind.

    Also, have you considered adding a highlight around the text so it doesn't blend in with the underlying terrain? I have a text background in my 'golden sands' that is just a feathered white background behind the letters. I feel like it draws them out without increasing their size or coverage too much, and might look good here.

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