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Thread: Aalder

  1. #1
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    Wip Aalder

    The mad scientist strikes again. I've been experimenting with a more painterly style; slowly but surely moving away from digital-looking. I've whipped this up in about 12 hours and I think it looks pretty cool. I've still got a ways to go with finishing up the labeling and then the finish work but it's time to get something to eat and watch some football.

    ~A~
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    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

  2. #2
    Guild Artisan LonewandererD's Avatar
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    Once again you've done it, great work dear sir. I do however have one nit to pick. Its very likely that this is just me but I'm thinking that the light blue coastline contrasts a bit too much with the earthy tones of the land.

    -D-
    People come and people go. I walk amongst them, I see their faces; but none see mine. I pass them in the streets but nary a glance is spared my way, for what interest would they have in a Wanderer? Not of this world... Forever Alone... Forever Wandering... LoneWandererD...

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  3. #3
    Guild Journeyer Tom_Cardin's Avatar
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    ooooh that is gorgeous! Love the colors and fonts you used. Lots of style!
    My debut novel, The Final Warden is available on Amazon.com in paperback and on Kindle.

    Please visit my blog for more information about my writing and my art

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  4. #4
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    The things I really like;

    1) Mountains - they look great
    2) Overall color scheme - though I agree with LoneWandererD about the bright teal

    Things that 'don't work for me';
    1) Forests - they seem to get lost in the terrain
    2) Fonts - Even though it looks like a hand written font, it still seems to 'perfect'. Love the title font though
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

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  5. #5
    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    I love those mountains, and the color/texture of the desert. Not too sure about the hills though, they look too ... sharp? ridge-y? I can't put my finger on it.

  6. #6
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    Lots of terrain tweaks. Also is a tweak that I have used in the past, and am resurrecting, for mountains. Using the tablet (you could use the mouse combined with the smudge tool for tapering the ends) I draw some ridge lines then emboss them. The emboss is set to soft light and multiply, 40 pixels, with a contour of Gaussian (not gloss contour). Then set the layer's fill at 50% and opacity at 75%. The second image shows what it looks like on a 50% gray background. I changed my roads to look like wagon tracks and added some shadows for the cities. Might need to go a skosh more on toning down the aqua color around the coast.
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    Last edited by Ascension; 10-26-2009 at 11:22 AM.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

  7. #7
    Community Leader mearrin69's Avatar
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    Looking pretty good. I like the ridgeline technique. Your city icons are cool...even though they're pretty simple I think they look nice. Agree that the forests are a bit hard to read as such. This reminds me (palette, shape) of a "painterly" map I just saw somewhere...maybe as an example in the request forum or something. I liked that map, so that's a good thing
    M

    [edit]Repped...in appreciation for your constant search for new, cool styles[/edit]
    Last edited by mearrin69; 10-26-2009 at 11:35 AM.

  8. #8
    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Mearrin, I think the one you're thinking of is Albion (the Fable II map); it reminds me a bit of that too.

    Love the ridgelines, thanks for the tip on creating them. I've been looking for a way to do that without spending days on it. The city icons look very exotic and cool.

  9. #9
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    The lil city icons are a brush and I think I got them here, don't remember. Anywho, they're just lines so I backfilled the empty space with stuff to make them stand out. I then flipped each lil section of this (can't flip the whole layer) and colored it black then skewed each section (can't skew the whole layer) for a shadow.

    The Albion is exactly it. I've seen it requested here twice in the past month so I figured I should try to do something more painterly - which I've been moving towards anyway. Albion appears to have satellite mountains chopped and composited in so I went with my own techniques. There's a pattern here of satellite mountains and I tried that but didn't like the results. The forest is a pattern, too, but with my own colors and then given a textured bevel. If you want to look for the brush and the patterns they're probably in the Resources section somewhere.

    Mostly, this map is a bunch of color layers with masks that are grunged up to show/hide colors in various places. Kinda fun and easy to play with and significantly faster than what I usually do - but since I tend to be perfectionistic the time is creeping back up...all in all I'd guess about 20 hours so far but redoing this same style would be much lower since I don't have to experiment anymore. I'm hoping to wrap it up by the end of the day cuz I finally got a day off (21 straight days finishing an entryway for some big muckety-muck's house) - so I ate Sir Robin's minstrels; and there was much rejoicing, yay.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

  10. #10
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    I for one love the bright teal coastlines! I'm not an expert, that's just my gut - It looks Kool!

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