WIP - Aronbor... or Perdon

[Ramah]

Ok, thanks for all the feedback guys, it's nice to get a lot of different perspectives on this.

As Ascension says, the agricultural land is supposed to be more representative and not a satellite view. I guess I could start obsessing over it and trying to get it geographically accurate but that was never the intention, the same as a town isn't the same as the little house icons I've used (although that would be quite fun, a whole village living in a giant cottage ). I'm sure from the distance the map is drawn the tilled earth effect and the squares of field that they make up would be considerably smaller, but a smaller pattern gave a less pleasing effect to me and looked even more artificial and obviously tiled.

I placed them in sometimes quite seemingly random shapes for two reasons - the first was to imply areas of fields, and not just the fields themselves. The second was a not very successful attempt at giving an almost cartoon perspective to them. If you look at the couple of areas around Morton (the first fields I placed actually) they kind of radiate out from the town.

Gidde: Maybe you prefer the look of the fields around Millerston or Coldwell? When I placed those fields there I tried running a Pinch filter on them first which twisted them a little to maybe give some 3d-a-like undulations. I was unsire of the effect and so just left those ones for reference.

Ascension: It shouldn't look exactly like the Vaniya map (as for one thing I formatted all my original brushes away, hehe) but is supposed to be, I hope, an updated version. I'm trying to improve upon everything if I can.
Everything is darker, yeah, and maybe the forests are a little TOO dark. Once everything is done I'll try making a few adjustments like that and see.

Anyway, thanks again for the CC all. I can see the agricultural land is a bit of a divider. Hehe.
I should get plenty of time to work on it today (Thursdays are probably my best day for computer time ) and I'll see if I can come up with something a little more pleasing.

[Gidde]

Gidde: Maybe you prefer the look of the fields around Millerston or Coldwell? When I placed those fields there I tried running a Pinch filter on them first which twisted them a little to maybe give some 3d-a-like undulations. I was unsire of the effect and so just left those ones for reference.

Oooh. I didn't see those before. Yes, that's exactly it. I love those ones.

[Ramah]

Ok, another day another update. I'm quietly confident now that I will get this thing finished for the weekend.

Changes to this update:

I've messed around with the agricultural land somewhat. Tried quite a few different techniques and then in the end I returned almost to how it was before. I've changed the colour of it, twisted most of them a little to look less patterned, got rid of most of the odd shapes and generally faffed around. I'm a lot happier with it (although I may still go with a green with a little more yellow in it before I sign off on it but for now I kinda like the contrast).
I've added about a half dozen more towns, a couple of mines, an abandoned prison, replaced a keep with a tower...
I've started adding some of the many labels that are missing in. Done the hills, added a few forests... still got a lot to do on this bit.
I've added another chunk of marginalia in.
I blended the word "the" from "The Grey Sea" into the stain as no-one commented on it. So I hope I've finally finished with that label now.
Ummm... and a few other things I can't remember right now.



Looking forward to hopefully signing off on this soon.

Edit: Ah crap, forgot to grungify one of the marginalia texts that goes over the large stain. Nevermind, I'll get that sucker for next time.

[Tear]

I like the agricultural area style you got there.
Just one thought: there is a really easy rule you can try to avoid breaking up with the pseudo-isometric style of the icons of the trees/towns/etc.
Avoid vertical lines.
Here is a quick sketch to show you what I mean:

[Ramah]

Thanks Tear and a good tip.

I'd hoped I'd gotten rid of any straight lines that remained. Have you spotted any then? Or is this a tip to save me any trouble in the future?

[Coyotemax]

Oh yes. I have no comments at this time besides "how many times can i rep the same map?" lol

[Juggernaut1981]

Ramah,
Yeah I wasn't trying to say "it should look like a real field". Closer to "everyone from a medieval society will know what a field looks like and how farmers set them up, so they wouldn't draw that"... It just really looked to me like "whack down pattern, grab the eraser, solved"

Not trying to sound like a pain in the ass.

[Tear]

It's just food for thought, nothing else. I'm not saying you should change anything, because it looks awesome as is. It's just something I thought about while admiring your work.

I noticed you made the lines less dominant in your latest version, but changing the angle might still provide that certain "depth" to go with the other icons.

Here is a contrast-enhanced region of yours along with some alternative angles. As I said already, just a thought for you to consider.

[Ascension]

That's a good idea there Tear. Lines closer together maybe but the idea is spot on for the overall "it fits".

[Tear]

Lines closer together maybe

Of course. It's just a really quick sketch to illustrate my thought. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.