Jartor - Commission request

[ravells]

Thanks guys, I value the feedback. Alfar, the wonkiness comes from carving the roads, and cleaning it up is going to take ages...but I'll give it a go. I'm just slapping down the buildings for the moment.

Gand, I took a closer look at the drop shadow, I think I'll use it selectively later on for taller buildings. (might work..will try) but everything drop shadowed shows up building overlaps which you can't see without it.

The vegetation is a brush which comes with Drawplus...definitely looks big though (might be the drop shadow I've added to it) - thanks, I'll play around with it.

[Steel General]

The drop shadows on the vegetation are bit overstated I think, though I do like the actual look of the foliage.

[Redstar]

Nice! Looking good. I think you're right about the buildings... they have a more organic feel to them. I'm still thinking that its possible to make the the lazy man technique work, but I'm just stubborn Way to push the limits!

[ravells]

Cheers SG, I've made the foliage much less strong - I'll probably look at the whole foliage / landscape / colour pallette thing again just before the end and try to sort them out then.

Keep going with the lazy man, Redstar, I tried for ages to make it work but I don't think I quite got there but Fogdown redux looked sublime. I much prefer the context free technique. Builds great castle and city walls too.

Here's the last render for tonight. Tomorrow I'll start detailing the districts properly and try and give them more individuality.

I think the time estimates I posted earlier are a little under-estimated. Building cities is like DIY. If you think it's going to take you 2 hours, then double it and add half on top again and that's how long it will really take you.

Still I'm having fun.

Cheers

Ravs

[Steel General]

I'll often put a inner shadow on the foliage/forest layers as well, gives it a bit more depth/dense-ness. Not sure how it might affect yours though.

[Ascension]

I was liking the darker forest (naturally) but was wanting a darker shadow for the houses, too light and blurry for hard edges buildings. I like the colors on the newer one even more, though, so I'm kind of torn.

[Gandwarf]

You are making some good progress Ravells! The houses look great. The foliage is a lot better now also.

One suggestion:
The smaller houses to the southwest turn into big houses quite abruptly. You might want to smooth the transition a bit by having some smaller houses in the district with the larger houses.

[ravells]

Thanks Gand, I'll catch those on the beauty pass. I've just used the drop shadow for the walls and the big buildings - I think that works OK.

I've pretty much done the beauty pass for all the nothern districts, just the four districts to the north and west of the island to go and the island as well. Ditched the textures completely and I think the map is much better for it. Vector's not great for textures so I think this way is better. Wag's tree symbols came in very handy - thanks Wag!

cheers

Ravs

[Gandwarf]

Hmm... you haven't convinced me yet. I liked the one with textures better.
Also, the topdown houses don't match well with the (sideway) trees I think.

[ravells]

I kinda like the greyscale...anyway, we can make the colour / texture decision at the end which is probably the right time for it anyway...got build myself some proper docks, and a canal and a bazaar...all in a day's work for a cartographer!

Tell you what though, if I am going to do the texturing I'm definitely taking into raster. Had people round for dinner tonight so only a small update with the island and some bridges done and some experiments on high verticals.