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Thread: WIP - Velaedin Empire

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    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Post WIP - Velaedin Empire

    I'm a top-down worldbuilder, so now that I have my continent done I'm ready to zoom in and start detailing regions.

    This is the next level of zoom on the Velaedin Empire, where most of the novel takes place. I'm branching out into a totally different style here; after drooling at Ramah's Vaniya/Aronbor maps I decided to make an attempt at a handdrawn map in the same vein. Plus, this is the type of map the folks who live here would probably have access to.

    Here's the first rough. I have the inner border, coastlines, and rivers in, a paper texture so that the first line drawings wouldn't be all white before I started messing with color later, and I've started on the mountains. They're all handdrawn using Ironmetal's tutorial.

    I'm a little concerned that I've overdone the mountain detail a bit. Does it look like it's going to be too busy once I go over everything with watercolor-ish color?

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    Guild Artisan Juggernaut1981's Avatar
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    With that level of detail, I think it could be highly dangerous to start tossing colour all over it. That's looking really nice hand-drawn kind of thing and I look at that and think "Wall Sized Parchment/Vellum"
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    Guild Artisan Facebook Connected Rythal's Avatar
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    I would say that the mountains look very good at the moment. I'm not sure how it would look when you put watercolour over it, but at the moment the mountains look very pronounced, and really stand out (mind you, there isn't anything around them), but based on what I've seen other maps of that type look like, I would say it is an excellent start

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    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Thanks Rythal

    @Juggernaut: That's exactly the feeling I was getting

    What I'm trying for is an ink-and-watercolor-on-paper look, and that means simpler mountains, I think. Harrumph. Well, before I go back to the proverbial drawing board, I'll try to get the color in, and then I can redesign to match it if necessary.

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    Splash some color on there and post it up, the worst that can happen is we say it doesn't look good.
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    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Good point, SG

    Here's a quick pass at the color. It lacks finesse, but effects to make it look actually watercolor-painted can wait (if I can ever get them to work). I had toyed with the idea of coloring mountain/hill areas brown, but I think simple blue and green are plenty. To make it as good a test as possible, I also did a little ink-bleeding.

    In case anyone's wondering what the crazy creases are, it's to simulate a rolled map rather than a folded one. I used the very scientific abuse-a-sheet-of-paper-and-scan-it method.

    So, what do you think, guys? Mountains good as is, or should I go simpler?

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    I like 'em...Ramah-esque. And that's a very good thing.
    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.
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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    The colors are very 'subtle' and work well with your existing mountains.

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    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.



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    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Thanks for the feedback, guys. Full speed ahead with shading mountains

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    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Well, I had every intention of waiting until the mountains were done before I posted an update, but this is glacial. Had to post up some progress to keep myself going.

    More mountains done here, and some color tweaks.

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