WIP - Aronbor... or Perdon

[Gandwarf]

And a compliment for the placenames. I like them a lot and somehow they seem fitting

[Juggernaut1981]

I like the premise of the Nation Titles, but my beef with them is that they appear "half-finished" compared to the locations. Localities get nice "black" full lettering... but a Nation gets Scribbly Pencil???

Maybe try fidgeting with the fonts (if they are fonts)? I'm not saying they need to be huge big black letters, but compared to the mountains, locality-tags, etc... they look like they were the half-assed "crud it needs to be off to the local captain in 6 hours..." by the maker.

Could be waaaaaay off track and feel free to ignore me if I am...

[Karro]

I like the style of the nation lettering. But I agree about the problem with the box. Honestly, I think it would work better not if you put boxes around all the nation names, but if you left the forest around The Ruhks with a sketchy, raggedy blurred edge as it it comes up to the lettering. Not strictly a clearing, but maybe like the whole area was filled in with trees, then erased away to make roome for the label.

Of course... easier said than done.

[Ramah]

I like the style of the nation lettering. But I agree about the problem with the box. Honestly, I think it would work better not if you put boxes around all the nation names, but if you left the forest around The Ruhks with a sketchy, raggedy blurred edge as it it comes up to the lettering. Not strictly a clearing, but maybe like the whole area was filled in with trees, then erased away to make roome for the label.

Of course... easier said than done.

I tried something like that and it wasn't looking great. I'm still working on the problem. I've tried boxes around the other names but on some it just doesn't seem to work, or at least I cannot get it to. So I'm going to give it another try doing it the original way like you suggest Karro.

[Ramah]

Ok, had another crack at The Ruhks area in the north and I'm finally reasonably pleased with the result. I'd already tried fading out the hills and trees in a similar fashion at the edges of the map (where the colours fade) and it just looked kinda false, so I didn't think it would work here either, which is why I was originally just going to leave a gap in the trees around the label.
Anyway, in the end I forested the whole area and used a layer mask to paint in some gradiented areas and gave it a good old blurring. I was hoping to avoid such an obviously digital technique but I think it looks ok, adding a kind of misty quality to the uncharted forest.



Anyone else agree? Disagree?

I've also added the first of the marginalia that I hope to populate the map with.

I still need to add some more places in, decide whether to do the sealanes or not, add icons for cities and keeps and basic tarting up and finishing touches.

[Gidde]

Yes, I think you've hit it. I really like that section now.

[Coyotemax]

oh yes, nailed it. That's like.. wow.

[Rythal]

wow... that is awesome.

[Ramah]

Thanks guys.

Hopefully that means I can finally put that particular bugbear behind me now and carry on with some more fun stuff.

[Karro]

Yeah, I agree, it looks great, and this way it's clear that the Ruhks label refers to the forest, and not to the whole map.