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Amazing work. Have some rep.
that is coming along very nicely!
My finished maps
"...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."
Amazing work. Have some rep.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
How Best to Add Creepers and Ivy?
Thanks for the support and excellent feedback armoredgear7, Gidde, Steel General, Coyotemax, and Gandwarf!
Time to strangle these buildings in creepers and vines. I'm struggling to find the best approach (not that I need limit myself to just one!) and best volume of foliage to add. I'm drawing vine stalks on with my Brush tool and draping leave patters across with my Brush tool's pen tip shaped like a leaf.
Which images do you think work best? Do you like the serpentine vines? Do you like the absence of serpentine vines?
One disadvantage of clothing the buildings heavily in creeper foliage is that it makes the buildings overall more green. Given the darkness of my night-time palette, the added green makes the buildings disappear more easily into the field on which they sit. This isn't much of a problem when I zoom in closely (like in the images below). But, when I pull back so that you can see the whole map at once, the added green creates too much camouflage. If I let creepers strangle too many ruins, I'll need to strengthen the contrast throughout so that the village doesn't vanish altogether. But the higher contrast makes the image look less like moonlit night time and more like strangely green daytime.
Everything is a balancing act!
Please give me your thoughts!
Last edited by Ashenvale; 09-27-2009 at 12:24 PM.
Well, zoomed in the creepers look awesome. Can we see a shot zoomed out?
Perhaps a compromise, some more heavily covered than others? that would look a bit more natural too, I would think.
My finished maps
"...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."
Here it is zoomed out, so you can see the creeper's effects. I may not zoom out this far in the final because it leaves so much area effectively empty and reduces one's ability to see the nifty details.
And there's lots yet to do -- tree trunks, rolling hills under the trees, water management, shadows from stone walls, more creepers everywhere, small, stunted trees in the fields, and so on.
Hit me with your feedback!!
The creepers don't seem to wash out the buildings to me, even at that scale. So I'd say full speed ahead.
Um ... and hurry! I'd love to see the final in the challenge
Are all the buildings made of stone?
One might expect some to be of wood, leaving burned-out shells in the "after" version, perhaps with only their fireplace/chimneys left standing and almost whole.
Selden
Creepers look properly creeping (creepy?) and totally perfect.
I like the idea of the wooden burned out buildings, but do you have time at this stage? argh!
My finished maps
"...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."
Wood Houses: You're all correct! It would be great, and I may do it for the published version, but I'm not going to undertake that task for the competition piece. Wood takes longer than stone. I can build stone swiftly with Craquelure and Texturizer/Sandstone Filters. Wood grain takes more care, and clapboard or shingles take even more care. Moreover, if I switched buildings in the deserted, nighttime village to wood, I'd need to switch them to wood in the daylight version as well, doubling the work.
Creepers: Good enough! Let the strangler vines arise!
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