watercolour style mapping

[loogie]

looks good, but I'm going to try for a handdrawn maps, but its something to try out

[Feralspirit]

In the Stern's Bridge thread there was a point early on in my coloring experiments that onlookers were calling a watercolor look, and Torstan added this post. As far as a hand drawn look, the use of dark outlines tends to contribute to an illustrated look, IMO. I noticed this first in Ascension's April Challenge WIP. Also worth looking at is Ravell's recent WIP, Greyscale Non-Destructive Experiment. Note how the coasts and rivers jump, versus the forests and mountains. In his first color version he adds a dark outline to the forest, which, also IMO, made it more a part of what he was going for. There are other examples, I'm sure, just take a stroll through Cartographer's Choice Forum looking for hand-drawn or illustrated styles.

Edit- Of course, nothing looks more hand-drawn than drawing by hand, .

[loogie]

Well I've been playing around, and heres my first result... I LOVE the watercolour because its nature is to be sloppy, you start out vague and work your way to detail... the only thing thats hard to do is on a canvas you have to make sure you leave your highlights blank (when painting in watercolour white doesn't do you much good, if you want crisp white, you have to leave the canvas blank in that spot)... something that is remedied in photoshop..

Anyways, heres my first results, a simple cabin, some boxes, and a wagon... I'll upload a big copy so you can see technique, but it is meant to be on a map and therefore small, so I'll attach another smaller picture with it the size I would expect to see it on a map. Let me know what you think!

Edit: DAMMIT! GOTTA STOP POSTING WITHOUT ATTACHING THE PICS!

[Ascension]

Very nice, what brushes did you use?

[loogie]

thanks! they were defaults with cs2... under dry brushes (haha)... i found that they had nicer texturing then those of wetbrush... i used a charcoal brush for the buildings, and switched to a charcoalish brush for the ground since it was more textured.

tips i found useful... set your brush yo multiply... start with a large brush, low opacity... and slowly work to smaller brushes incrasing the opacity... finally use a small brush set to normal and colour white, low opacity to make some highlights...

only thing that worries me is if i ever try to make anything on a transparent bg for reuse,such as items for tabletop games etc... might take some doing, tho it may also be easy, i dunno!

[ravells]

That is really impressive, Loogie!!! I must actually try to use photoshop for genuine painting myself (if i could draw...but it's always fun to try).

[Immolate]

http://www.new-work.com/mrthumb.htm
http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/maps/gal...1799/index.php
http://www.duggback.com/design/500_F...for_Photoshop/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1019643/Wa...oshop-Tutorial
http://rickarts.com/watercoloracryli...sdiagrams.html
http://www.mcelfreshmap.com/index.php?gallery

[guyanonymous]

Great links! Thank you!