Kingdom of Umthaeul

[landorl]

I love the mountains! Some of the best HD mountains I have seen. I agree that the original forests did not fit the map. These ones are much better, but could still use a little work. I think Juggernaut had a couple of good suggestions.

Keep it coming!

[Sicuropoli]

I actually enjoy the Forests as they are. It's a lovely representation.

[Isadore]

Alright, well Ive tired of mulling over the forests, so here they are. Im not disappointed with them but not entirely thrilled either. I have decided not to put bases on them as it looks messy and from the perspective of range, I dont think theyd be visable anyhow. Anyway, Ill be starting on finding some icons to put down and the roadways next. Ill also throw in a few marshes near the coast and rivers. Here is the map with the forests completed.

[rdanhenry]

I agree: those are good forests, but not great forests. I do think this map would look better if you could use a darker "ink". I know true black wouldn't be authentic, but I've seen darker inks than that and right now the contrast is a little low.

[Sapiento]

The map looks very good so far. The mountains are really lovely.

[pengod]

Isadore your forest are definately darker than needed but I would suggest that your large bodies of water are too dark as well. The strong dark colour implies a solid object but water is obviously fluid and has movement, the colour works for your rivers so perhaps fading the intensity of large bodies of water or appling a glow to the coastal edge might help it to read better.

I've used a transparent white mask to lighten the bodies of water in my WIP, I'll attach it to show you what I mean. I also used transparent darker masks to define the land mass.

[jfrazierjr]

I wish I could claim credit, but the technique Ive used for the mountains was based off a small tutorial from jfrazierjr on making isometric mountains in this type of style. And yes, Ive erased the forests layer entirely and still have a bit of tweaking on my lakes and rivers to do. Heres a post of the mountains again, they are almost done, but you can see the stages of the technique somewhat if you look far in the top center of the map.

I have to say Isadore, I am IMMENSELY pleased at how you were able to take my little tutorial and come up with such INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL mountains. Your take on this has pointed out something I have known for quite a while but real life has been getting in the way of fixing: I need to go back to my tutorial and update it to better define the methodology of getting a more isometric look, specifically, the original tutorial has quite flattish bases and they need to be more UN-uniform about the bottom base to really bring out the ISO nature. It looks far better when your using just two colors as you use here (shading and transparency), but when adding colors on top of a background as I did in the original, the problem stands out much more and makes the mountains look more flat. I hope to eventually get around to doing some nice mockups and fixing the tutorial.

Anyway, again, AWESOME take and thanks for the credit given for the inspiration.

[Ascension]

I use darker colors for my oceans as well since I see lighter as being higher and somebody called me on that once as well. It's all personal preference.

[Juggernaut1981]

I like the "dark lakes/rivers" but I think of fading them out. It lets you decorate all over them if you really want...

[Isadore]

Alright! Sorry for taking so long to get back to this post and the work, but Ive been extremely busy! Though its not actually completed, Im going to call this map quits due to creative burnout and time constraints. Most of my free time lately is spent writing! I threw in a couple swamps/marshes and added some labels. The town icons I threw together and it was fun, Id like to spend more time on making some nifty looking ones someday! Ive learned an awful lot in the progression of this map and Id like to thank everyone for their comments and encouragement. Again, in particular, I would like to thank jfrazierjr for the mountains inspiration, I really am pleased with them myself!