WIP - Aronbor... or Perdon

[Ascension]

I feel your pain about shading one line at a time...takes forever. But the results are usually worth it and yours looks great, so, there ya go

[Ramah]

Ok, time for an update.

A lot of my time since last I updated was spent trying to get the sea and the coastal area looking a little spiffier. This led to me to working on the outside of the map and I think that how that area looks now is close to how it will finish up.

I've also ROUGHED in most of the forests. I stress this point, I have only used two brushes (one evergreen and one deciduous) and spent very little time on them. They will be completely redrawn.
My main reason for this is I am uncertain about the size of the trees. And so I have a question to anyone reading this...

I figured that with a much bigger area to play with this time I could make the trees smaller and still have slightly more detail than on the continental map. But I'm not sure they work at a smaller size without looking a little too... umm... busy.
The forest in the NE corner of Aronbor was done at the smaller size. All the other forests were done at a size closer to the original Vaniya map (but still a little smaller).
So my question is, which do you think looks better?

Anyway, here it is.

[Gidde]

They both look good, but I think I like the larger size better.

An unrelated issue -- the way those two rivers in the northwest go all the way through the hills, it looks like they flow in two directions at once.

[Tear]

So my question is, which do you think looks better?

It depends on the final printing size, but overall I like the smaller tree size.

[Ramah]

Heh. That's strange. And annoying.

I decided to add an adjustment layer during the final effect stage to alter the colours so that the images posted up here are more representative of what I actually see in PS (I really need to have a crack at altering the colour settings in the program).

The Vaniya map and the ones I have posted so far in this thread have all been a touch dark and cold compared to what I see when working on them. So I spent some time last night getting it to save the jpegs so that they looked very similar in Windows picture viewer to how they do in PS.

But when I check that image that I just uploaded in Firefox I can see that it is now showing too much yellow in the image. I've warmed that bad boy up too much. :@

Zzz.. I guess I'll try halving my adjustment layer settings and see if it makes it any better for the next update.

[Ramah]

They both look good, but I think I like the larger size better.

An unrelated issue -- the way those two rivers in the northwest go all the way through the hills, it looks like they flow in two directions at once.

Yeah, I need to adjust that I guess, although the rivers are actually nowhere near connected. But I put a sinuous crevasse type thing in whilst shading those hills and it's made them look connected. :S

Ah well, I still need to delete a few tributaries up there so I guess one of those will do nicely.

[Steel General]

I prefer the larger trees, though either would work just fine.

[Ascension]

I like the smaller trees...makes the mountains look bigger and cooler.

[Ramah]

Well that's two votes for the larger trees and two votes for the smaller ones. I guess I have my answer... medium sized it is.

[Ramah]

A new update.

I've spent a lot of time on the trees since the last update. Too long really. Man, is it getting on my nerves. Hehe.

Anyway, I've got all the evergreen trees in and maybe a third of the deciduous trees in. I still have the massive forest in the Ruhks to put in, which I am not looking forward to one bit. Ah well.
I have shaded between most trees, except some in the north where I have deciduous trees to place next to them.

Btw... I know about the clump of trees in the northern area which have lower opacity than the rest. They were the last group I did before finishing for the night and only when I had added a few little effects did I realise I had drawn them on the shadowing layer. Zzzz.

I've also added a new lake in the NE, mended a few little things that only I would probably notice anyway and added a rough sketch of Colden Wall. I may edit this as I go along but I have left it purposefully rough looking to tie in with the rest.

Umm... I think that's it. For the next update I should hopefully have all the trees finished and will make a start on adding places and labels.

And here it is...