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Thread: Valcian Steel

  1. #1
    Guild Apprentice Auth's Avatar
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    Map Valcian Steel

    Whew!

    First of all, my apologies for not being as active as I would have wanted - shortly after I posted my first Valcia Map, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, and fatherhood has taken up much of my time.

    But at any rate, here's my newest version of Valcia.

    I started this project as a conceptual detour to merge both traditional fantasy cartography with a more modern steel design interface (which is far more my personal style preference), and the result is Valcian Steel. My intent was to create an accurate depiction of Valcia on a large sheet of chiseled, engraved steel. Also, this project was a rather conservative venture as I tried to do more with less. You'll notice that the only terrains added on top of the land texture are the forests, hills, and mountains. This was intentional as I didn't want to detract from the overall brushed steel texture of the land masses.

    (The original map of Valcia can be found here)

    Another thing I was pleased about was with the increased size of the map, I could now include far more detail into labeling the various landscapes and terrains that I was unable to do so legibly in the first version of Valcia. For instance, you'll notice now that every river has been named and several terrain features now bear a label (Carion Cliffs, for example).

    Created in Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop, the original file resolution is 14,400 x 10,800 and is being printed and framed for my office, which has been my intent all along.

    However, the first attached image has been scaled down 75%.

    Unfortunately, some of the detail that went into this piece was lost due scaling it down. Most notably are the mountains - in the print there is much more fine detail than what shows.

    The other 4 attachments are are quarters of the map scaled down to 50%. Much more detail can be seen in these, but are less convenient to view.

    But at any rate, here they are. Let me know what you all think - I've had a rather long love/hate relationship with this project, and am quite relieved to finally share it on here with you all, haha.

    Some of my personal favorite points of interest include the areas of/around Lake Stant, Weret Bay, Aibrel Islands, the Serician Spires, Mount Morath and, of course, the Compass Rose (among others).

    Regards,

    - Auth
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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  2. #2
    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Simply gorgeous. I'm impressed that you managed to convey things being etched *into* the steel while at the same time giving them apparent height.

    Rep coming your way!

  3. #3
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    Talk about avante garde, wow. Rep for doing something totally "out of the box".
    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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  4. #4
    Guild Apprentice Auth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gidde View Post
    Simply gorgeous. I'm impressed that you managed to convey things being etched *into* the steel while at the same time giving them apparent height.

    Rep coming your way!
    Thank you so much.

    Yeah, that was actually a difficult concept earlier on - creating a downward bevel as opposed to an upward one, since mountains should go up, right? Lol.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ascension View Post
    Talk about avante garde, wow. Rep for doing something totally "out of the box".
    As always Ascension, thank you for your uplifting support!

  5. #5
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    Very cool stuff Auth!

    I dub thee newly repped *BONK*
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

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



  6. #6
    Guild Expert Ramah's Avatar
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    Great looking map, Auth.

    I have to say, I prefer the original but you certainly can't knock this for its stylistic achievement.
    I personally would prefer it without the blue glows around the labelling and maybe having the text extruded from the metal plate - it just seems a little strange that you've gone to all the trouble of making it appear to be chiselled from a piece of steel and then have glowing labels floating over the top of it. Kind of pulls me out of the effect.

    Still, wonderful map.
    Royal: I'm very sorry for your loss, your mother was a terribly attractive woman.


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  7. #7
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    It is a strikingly beautiful map.
    “Maps encourage boldness. They're like cryptic love letters. They make anything seem possible.”
    -Mark Jenkins

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  9. #9
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    Wowsers, that's pretty cool. As mentioned above, for style I still prefer your original map (it had a cool ancient fantasy vibe to it), but this is definitely something original and very cool in appearance and execution.
    I think, therefore I am a nerd.
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    Pimping my worldmap here. Still WIP... long way to go, but I'm pretty proud of what I've done so far...

  10. #10
    Community Leader Facebook Connected torstan's Avatar
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    Congratulations, and congratulations on the baby girl!

    That's quite a map. Repped and rated.

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