Island in gimp - attempt to turn hand drawn into atlas-ish style map

[Ferra Dubrinsky]

Hi,
I've been lurking for about 4 months on and off at the guild, when I had time. I was really impressed by many of the maps created here. well, a few weeks back i started having a series of dreams involving a place i've never heard of, and different peoples who don't exist. As a writer, this tends to happen a lot, a muse grabs you and this time, i had started not just dreaming of the characters, but of the places and the influences in their environments etc. and since i started looking at some of the maps on here, i thought to myself, i can actually make my own map, i have 10+ years graphics design and a great imagination......... yeah...... y'all make it look sooooo easy. lmao.

so one night at my work when it was slow and i was really bored, i drew a quick sketch of a map. the one i had seen or at least a close rendition of the one i had seen in my dream. don't laugh when you see it even i know an 8 year old could do better.
island of unknown name.jpg

sorry i didn't correct the portrait into landscape.

so i found several wonderful tutorials on atlas style, by Ascension, which rock. as a matter of fact using those tutorials gave me an even sweeter land mass than i could have drawn.

island of unknown name2.jpg

and it worked great right up to the part where you have to do a gradient map for the land color. the down side to running off my map is, i have specific regions where geographic formations have to occur. deserts, mountain ranges, valleys etc. and i need a different method of doing the land color/s than a gradient map. i have tried several ideas, like painting in my land colors, but sadly i am not sure how to get them from the initial coloring to a finished product like Ascension's and others' i have seen.

are there any keywords for tutorials i need to search that i am just not thinking about? i have tried land color, mountains, mountain building, forests....

thanks for any help and crit you can give.

have a great day!
ferra

[madcowchef]

Its not for GI p but I found the tutorial here very helpful in that regard
http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...photoshop.html
Looks like an interesting land mass, you might want to leave a little more negative space around it or even angle it a little so it doesn't conform to strongly to the rectangular shape of the paper.

[Ferra Dubrinsky]

Its not for GI p but I found the tutorial here very helpful in that regard
http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...photoshop.html
Looks like an interesting land mass, you might want to leave a little more negative space around it or even angle it a little so it doesn't conform to strongly to the rectangular shape of the paper.

sweet thank you. to be honest i am not sure if this is actually an island or a peninsula off a larger continent. the scale is roughly 1/2 inch = 20 miles. i was really just going for the part that was labeled as Gadmira and a portion (with trade routes) of Carthos, your idea about using more negative space is actually better for that. i can focus on what i really wanted to focus on. thank you so much for the help!

[Ferra Dubrinsky]

so i started reading the tutorials posted earlier. i rethought how i wanted it to look and what was actually known about the place i am maping. i am also playing around with using a larger scale as well.

the color in this picture i am using soley for reference. it is most likely going to change some as i change my mind


island of unknown name redux adding rivers and lakes.jpg

[madcowchef]

Making adjustments as needed is what I like best about working digitally.

[Ferra Dubrinsky]

i love the fact that you don't have to have a whole bunch of eraser bits on a desk and pencil marks of varying hardnesses that you will never be rid of if you change your mind. lol. that and the reems of paper i go through when hand drawing.

[jbgibson]

When something like this springs from your subconscious, do you feel like if you get it "wrong" with respect to the dreams your muses are going to corner you in a dark alley and whup you? Or are they okay with your waking imagination taking over?

[Ferra Dubrinsky]

lol a bunch of times, yes. my muses are a little bit deranged... as last night i dreamed for a reason i still can't seem to explain, that i was protecting 2 pokemon from a crazed doctor who sic'ed his giant tyranosaurus on us and it destroyed my house. <-- no joke i woke up this morning in cold sweats. i haven't watched pokemon in years, and i haven't watched any prehistorical documentories lately.... yeah, my muses scare me sometimes lol. when insparation strikes, i try to stay as true to what the "rules" were in the moment of creation.

for this, the rules were, a small village or rest area/trading post every 15 miles in the Gadmira region. this is so people can travel through the day and have a place to rest safely at night. second, Gadmira is mainly in desert and grasslands. there are mountains and a few small rivers/oasis, but it's nothing like on the west side of the landmass. i had my dreams "through the eyes" of a Gadmiran. so i really only know what they know. they know through trading with their western neighbors that the west is filled with snow capped mountain ranges and lots of lakes and rivers that flow to the sea. they know that there are people whom they've never met to the north who ride horses almost as good as them and there are possibly several more kingdoms.
the Gamirans have very good relations with their trading partners to the west. there are at least 3 small kingdoms within 2-4 weeks walking/caravan distance, trade goes on through out the year thanks to the mild climate.

there are a few more details that are probably too boring for here about climate and precipitation that were in the dream, along with the types of oasis and cystern colections etc that were in my dreams. but do i feel i need to make sure i remain true to what the muses have laid down, you betcha. if they are happy and they send a t-rex to pick on me, immagine what they do when they are mad! lmao

have you ever had something come to you like that? ... not a t-rex, but an idea ?

[Ferra Dubrinsky]

i have realized that i really don't like the tediousness of putting in rivers. lakes is ok. rivers.... rivers are the bane of my existence right now..... they are evil... evil i tell you. after 3 days.... i thought i would be much farther along than i am now.... but noooooooo. *sigh* evil.... down right evil.... *mutters to self as she goes back into her cave to modify the map some more....*

[Ferra Dubrinsky]

island of unknown name redux second visible map of lakes and deletion of duplicates.jpg
so i have gotten this far on the map, i did move the northern river a bit. i am not sure if i want to add the undergound aqueducts to the map or not. i think for the long run i should, but i don't know if i should continue with the geography first before adding in the man-made stuff or not...
and yes, the Inca had a vast water system in the desert that they had to clean out every 3-5 years, it was wide enough for someone to fith through and it provided fresh drinking water through out the year to all the desert citizens of their empire. it was pretty ingenious really. it was dug from underground too. they used rocks to sure up the walls and added wells that you could climb into and out of as needed for cleaning the aqueducts etc. and there's the histroy lesson for the month. go check it out if you get a chance to, there's a lot of interesting stuff. have a great day!