A Draft of Ilaros

[Sular]

I'm trying to think of a way of to getting the desert (and other large areas of somewhat bland areas) to have a little more color variation and texture. So far, not much has worked out all that well. However, I am pressing on.

I've done some edits to the map, some mountain sharpening, a few more rivers, and some tentative blending of the hills and mountains. Also, a tentative scale (the bar is theoretically a thousand miles in length) has been added.

[Gidde]

Repped! This looks fantastic.

[msa]

I'm trying to think of a way of to getting the desert (and other large areas of somewhat bland areas) to have a little more color variation and texture. So far, not much has worked out all that well. However, I am pressing on.

I know this is simple, but you might just try a layer of noise or clouds set to lighten, darken, overlay, or a variety of other effects. Sometimes just varying the color between two fairly similar shades of green will crease a very nice texture without breaking up the sense that it is a plain.

I think this map is very pretty, btw. I particularly like the sharp color differentiation between different terrains. Often, I prefer a more gradual change, but in this map it works very well.

My one thought on your forests is that they give the sense of being individual trees, which seems out of scale with the rest of the map. It might be better to fill them in instead of filling them with gaps. That said, I think the texture and look of them is very pretty.

[philipstephen]

Your map looks fantastic! Great shape, flow, and detail!

I wonder if you have your mountains and their colour as a seperate layer from your background?

if so, you could blend your hills and mountains a bit more by playing with the transparency of the mountains. Or even introducing a transition colour around the edge of the mountains?

As it is, their shape looks great, but the contrast between their dark brown colour and the surrounding area makes the transition of tone seem a little sudden.

Just some thoughts.

Still, brilliant map.

Phil

[Sular]

I've added a minor adjustment layer which give some minor color variance to the the whole thing. I'm rather pleased with the results.

As for making the mountains have a smoother transition, I agree that it needs to be done, but further blurring messes with the bevel to a large degree, and increasing the transparency looks wonky. If any of you have some points in that line, I'll give them a try. (For the record I am using photoshop CS3)

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The northern portion of the map is causing me some small consternation as I am unsure what to do with the terrain up there. From a world-internal point of view, it's a fairly unknown region so I imagine it has some features that allow for this. Right now I am leaning towards a large Amazonesque forest, but I am not sure.

[Alecthar]

You could cover it with fog and label it "Lands Unknown" or the like.

[Steel General]

If you used layer masks and then used a lowered opacity/flow brush to unmask the areas it will produce a similar effect that you will have much more control over than with a simple blur.

[Ascension]

What you need are some transitional hills. You have lots of hills but you need some hills that sort of follow the general shape of the mountains but extended further out and they could probably be done in a brown that's not as dark as the mountains. If you add forests then you'll cover those areas up anyways. So you could add like a ring of foothills around the mountains (or many little rings for that matter) or just add forests.

[jfrazierjr]

As for making the mountains have a smoother transition, I agree that it needs to be done, but further blurring messes with the bevel to a large degree, and increasing the transparency looks wonky. If any of you have some points in that line, I'll give them a try. (For the record I am using photoshop CS3)

The key to that is to use multiple layers, with the bevel on a 50% grey layer set to overlay. Then, you can do again in a larger area but with smaller bumpmapping to simulate hills and so on...Add color on a totally seperate layer with just the color(either painted down, or using a layer mask that is somewhat blured.)

[Sular]

Sorry for the lack of developments, and thanks to everyone for all the ideas. At the moment I am setting aside the physical map and directing my attention to the political map.

At present it i only partly done, and so far unlabeled as I am looking for an elegant method of labeling non-contiguous countries of which there are several.