Reply With QuoteNow for the biggest challenge, the great balancing act. How do I keep the dark side dark enough to read as nighttime while still revealing all of its details and content?
Running out of time!
(Copyright 2009 by Edward J. Reed, all rights reserved)
Behold the Strangling Creepers!!
NOW it's beginning to look like an "after" picture!
(as always, copyright by me, now, all rights reserved, blah, blah, blah . . . )
Beginning to Pull It All Together!
Now for the biggest challenge, the great balancing act. How do I keep the dark side dark enough to read as nighttime while still revealing all of its details and content?
Running out of time!
(Copyright 2009 by Edward J. Reed, all rights reserved)
Ruined Village Close-Up
Oh, bite me! I completely forgot to attack the building on the far left. No rubble, no vines, nothing.
There's always something . . .
I remain unconvinced whether I should show the whole ruined village using the same scale as the prospering village (as shown in the map attached to my last post, above), or zoom in more like this to show more details amidst the ruins.
What do you all think?
I, personally, would keep the same scale on both maps.
While it's tempting to show more detail and not waste space with all those trees on the second map it's a lot easier to get the change/difference if you keep it the same scale.
Maybe you can try to poke some ruined and/or overgrown roofs through the treetops instead to make it more interesting.
In any case, beautiful entry.
Have you considered pulling the focus in for the first map? I understand that this is a map for a client, so the "before" picture has details the other map doesn't. But for purposes of this challenge, maybe crop it down so it matches the second picture in size and scale.
If anything it might look like more of a before/after type picture, appearing that the woods are encroachng as well.
My finished maps
"...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."
Fear of Trees!
Now THATS a fantastic idea!Originally Posted by Tear
Maybe you can try to poke some ruined and/or overgrown roofs through the treetops instead to make it more interesting.
In any case, beautiful entry.
My instinct to zoom in comes in large part from constructive criticism I got from Wolfgang Baur, editor of Kobold Quarterly and Open Design, on my early versions of my "Birch Queen's Fair" map. My original version contained the final version within roughly 60% of the area of the picture plane, with the remainder comprised of a rolling forest bordering all sides and leaving the fair itself a smaller image in the middle. (I added vignettes to try to fill the empty space.) Wolfgang's dead-on criticism amounted to, "Why are you showing me so many meaningless trees?"
My "after" map of the Feeding Hill's Village feels so much like that earlier Birch Queen's Fair map that my instincts say, "Zoom in! Zoom in!" The difference, of course, is that here, with the Feeding Hills double map, the scale DOES matter because it creates that clear "before and after" feeling. In the Birch Queen's Fair map, there was no sibling map to which scale was linked. I should get over my angst about "too many trees" and, as Tear suggests, find better ways to make the sweeping image of the darkened forest work for me.
Lovin' this website! Such great feedback!
The "good" village, bathing in the light looks awesome. With all those streams going on you need some watermills
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
The adventure includes a saw mill (where nasty, nasty things can happen!). If time permits, I'll add the water wheel. But in all likelihood, that will have to await preparing my version for the publisher, not this competition. I'm so far behind that I likely won't have time, before the competition closes, to add tags, a rose compass, or any of the design elements I have in mind.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
-George Bernard Shaw
You should write a tutorial on your process Ashenvale. The results are quite lovely and I think there is a sizable market for interest among the cartographers here.
Wow, thanks Immolate! That's the best compliment anyone can offer!
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