One thing that might help a little with understanding the layout, would be to add contour lines. I know a lot of people don't like them, but it sure does clear things up. Just a thin line - Maybe a soft gray color so that it doesn't stand out too much.
Hi all,
Didn't have much time this week to work on this but finally got a few hours tonight. Finished building colors and did some various cleanup and painting...some roads, tree stuff, etc. It's looking a little better now. Still a lot to do though. Back soon, I hope. Maybe I can finish it this week.
M
Looks good, at least you have colored all the buildings now
So is this walled building on the island to the north a palace or something?
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
It's actually the city's congressional/legislative compound. Most of the real work of running the city takes place in administrative buildings in the main part but this is where the shizhang ("mayor"), advisors, and the "city council" meet and generally hang out in the lap of luxury. The mayor and her family live in the mansion to the west of the walled compound. The large dock further west is for ferries from the mainland.Originally Posted by Gandwarf
Some other points of interest, in case anyone is wondering:
1) Haibianr is built on the ruins of an ancient city from a much more advanced (techno-magical) civilization. The towers along the northern shore are artifacts of that people...arcane-powered artillery that keep the city safe. Most of them work. The rest are armed with rocketry...as are the many patrol boats. Some of the larger white buildings on the mainland are older buildings that are still in use...the rest have been scavenged.
2) The western coast, outside of the city walls, holds the main industrial area, docks, and shipyards. Most foreign vessels dock here. The large grey building is a fireworks/rocketry factory and the dots represent a shanty town.
3) At the top of the hills on the eastern side of the map is the House of the Four Winds, a monastic order of monks with a secret. To the south of that, further up the hills, is the Temple of Heaven.
4) The wierd steel-grey things are terraced fields...they'll hopefully look better when colored.
M
Grr...hit Ctrl+something and lost my post. Hate that...
Anyway. This is getting to the point that I'm about ready to call it finished. I've got some more tweaking and a lot of texturing to do but I'm liking it pretty well at this point. There are a few areas I was hoping for advice on, though:
1) I can't seem to get the city, fields, forest, etc. to "read" as sitting on the sides of some pretty steepish hills. You can tell there are hills there but they just don't seem all that substantial. I'd rather not put contour lines or anything artifical but can't seem to make them pop.
2) Any ideas for the water? I've mushed it around a bit but haven't found anything I like...except the color.
3) The forests are very plain and I want to texture them some more. Played around with it a little bit on the northern island...just dabs of varying color. Any ideas for a better way to do this? I'm thinking I don't want to just overlay a repeating texture but maybe there's some cool technique of which I am unaware (hmmm, write awkwardly or end with a preposition?)
Any help with these issues - or other ways to improve it will be much appreciated. Hopefully my next post will be in the Finished Maps section. Thanks to everyone for their input so far.
M
for elevation, how about a subtle gradient with darker shades being the low areas and lighter shades being the high? just put it in a transparent layer, and play around with overlay or multiply or some odd layer effect until it looks right...
just a thought...
i should double check what software you are using...
by the by, i am really digging the map so far... i hope it is okay if i might use it in a game.
good luck!
phil
I did this a little with just the terrain but I think it's time to give it a go over the top of everything. Thanks for the tip. I hope it works!
Thanks, and you're more than welcome to the map for personal use. I'm just excited someone likes it enough to *want* to use it!
M
BTW, looked at your campaign site. Did you do the map of Istarnia? I like the style.
Last edited by mearrin69; 10-12-2009 at 02:25 AM.
Yep... that map of Istarnia on Obsidian Portal was one of my first photoshop maps. I just cloned black and white symbols from other maps I liked -- stealing a mountain here, a forest there... and then painted it in a layer and multiplied it so the black lines showed through...
After that I found Cartographer's Guild and realized how much cooler maps could be with a little effort...
and now i have been spending crap loads of effort, likely reinventing the wheel a bit due to my lack of skill at following instructions in tutorials... ah well, at least folks seem to dig my world map...
one thing you could do for your sea texture is have a faint halo around the land to suggest shallow water... there are likely multiple ways to do this, but i just had the land as a layer and gave it a glowing edge for mine. other than that, your colours and textures are just fine... and you could even do well without the glowing edge...
good luck and happy thanksgiving!
This map is really starting to come together! Are you going to label it also?
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
@Gandwarf: Thanks. I do plan to label it...to some undetermined degree. It will carry some sort of logotype name at the top, some Chinesey marks (including my "chop" - signature block - in red), and a compass rose.
Not sure what else but I've seen some opinions on here that folks don't much care for numbered entries aesthetically. That seem right? This is for an adventure and campaign setting book and the GM will need to know where certain things are located. I might keep a "beauty" version and then create a utility version with the other information included.
I'm actually really looking forward to breaking out my wife's prismacolor markers some day and going to work on the paper version...hopefully suitable for framing if I don't screw it up too badly
M
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