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Thread: The Dying Sea

  1. #1
    Administrator Facebook Connected Diamond's Avatar
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    Post The Dying Sea

    Hey all, first post (aside from my intro thread ), so be gentle.

    This is the setting for a series of short stories I've been writing on and off for a while now. They revolve around the Septocracy, a federation of city-states ruled by necromancers. It's a primarily desert setting, with steppeland in the north (home to nomadic tribesmen), and some wetlands/jungles/swamps in the south (most of which aren't shown here).

    The only thing I'm really unhappy with is the way the borders turned out; I may refine this map at some point to change that.

    *Note: I recycle names and concepts a lot across my various maps, so if yo see the same name on more than one map, don't be alarmed.
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  2. #2
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    Post

    First off, nice font and I like what you're doing with the gradient and warp on those. The borders seem ok to me but I'm wondering if you're going for the "glow" look...in which case you just make a selection, plop down a color into the shape then reduce the selection, feather the selection, and then delete the middle out of it leaving a glowing ring of color. You could also just reduce the opacity of the color or change blend mode but that kinda ruins the parchment look. If you want exact steps it's in my atlas tutorial but there are some other tuts here that go into it as well.

    The main thing is the water, it looks like a photoshop distort-glass-filter and not hand-drawn like the other parts and it gives me a lil bit of a disconnect. It's not a big thing and if you like it that's all that matters really Overall quite nice to look at.
    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)


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  3. #3
    Administrator Facebook Connected Diamond's Avatar
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    Post

    Yeah, I agree with you on the water efx. It was in the nature of an experiment, one that didn't turn out exactly as planned.

  4. #4
    Professional Artist cereth's Avatar
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    Post

    Yeah, overall I like the look and feel of the map. I definitely like the use of the fonts...the cool font used on the nations with the gradient and the hand drawn look of the city names. I like the tree symbols also...they are simple and work for me.

    I agree with Ascension though...the water throws me off some. I think something more simple would jive better with the overall feel of the map.

    You might just go without the nation borders altogether...I don't think they're really necessary for this type of map. You get enough of a feeling for where one nation stops and another one begins without them i think.

    Overall, an awesome map though!
    "Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government."

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