[WIP] Canthar: World Map

[DungeonMasterGaz]

Hi All

I've been playing around with different effects and styles for this map, so my progress has been a bit on the slow side. Anyway, here's what I've added.

I only want to add mountains and rivers at this scale, so I’ve been experimenting with using symbols to depict the mountains. However, the look didn’t keep with the magical "pop-up" style I’ve envisioned. The symbols just looked too flat, and that’s not the effect I wanted. Because of this, I decided to use the tool from CA 2009, Issue 24: Shaded Reliefs.

I put the reliefs on a new layer, called reliefs. I had to play around with the settings for a while until I got what I think is the right look.

At first the effect was too strong, and the mountains looked too large and out of place, so I reduced the size of the reliefs and crowded them closer together, even overlapping in places.

Next I added the rivers by drawing fractal lines, splitting them and increasing their thickness as they got closer to the coasts.

When I took a look at my progress with the sheet effects on, the mountains looked too transparent, and didn’t really stand out on the map. To remedy this I added a contour layer, placed it beneath the relief layer that my mountains were on, and added a blur and transparency effect. I think this makes the mountains stand out a bit more.

Now I’ve just got to add some settlements, features, etc., and label the map. Once that’s done I can start working on the plane view.

DMG