Page 1 of 9 12345 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 89

Thread: Untitled Campaign Map

  1. #1
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    1,945

    Wip Untitled Campaign Map

    Started working on a new map request!

    My favourite thing about this one is that I've been meaning to head this particular direction with my style for a bit now (inspired by Ramah!).

    With the supplied sketch, I was able to easily work up the coastlines and terrain layout. I'll likely adjust a few things slightly as I go (especially the exact flow of the rivers etc) but this seems workable so far. the colours will likely get adjusted towards the end a bit as well, but for the moment, these are quite workable. I'm planning on doing the mountains completely by hand instead of brushes, I'm getting tired of seeing the same slopes and angles all the time from my set

    I'm doing this to be rather large sized again, so I'll be posting the WIP's at half size, with occasional detail crops at full size. I'm also planning on doing a Zoomify version when all is done as well, to allow for zooming and scrolling.

    *rubs hands together and grins maniacally*

    Here goes nothing!

    [edit- map is done, completion post here!
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	layout01.jpg 
Views:	286 
Size:	986.0 KB 
ID:	21690  
    Last edited by Coyotemax; 03-13-2010 at 01:59 PM.

    My finished maps
    "...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."

  2. #2
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    1,945

    Wip

    So far so good, mountains are going to be a pain, but so worth it.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	mntest.jpg 
Views:	108 
Size:	29.1 KB 
ID:	21694  

    My finished maps
    "...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."

  3. #3
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Ft. Wayne, IN
    Posts
    9,530

    Default

    Very Ramah-esque...
    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.



  4. #4
    Guild Novice
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Afghanistan
    Posts
    10

    Default

    Those are some beautiful mountains! Lookin good, man!

  5. #5
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    1,945

    Default

    And now I remember why I started turning mountains into brushes from my previous maps and just recycling them.. I seemed to have blocked the agony out of my mind after moving onwards

    Still, that's overshadowed by the concept of "if you want them to look just so, the only way is to hand draw them".

    Here's the layout so far, I've added in marker colours for the hill ranges as well. I realized that I'd made the working legend right on the shrunk version and not saved it, so you'll have to do without this time. Still, nothing else has been changed except the addition of brown to represent hills.

    The last 2 days have been a bit slow going, my muse seems to have taken a break, but I've been getting in there and making progress anyhow. Sometimes you gotta say "i don't care whether i feel like working or not" and just do work

    I was playing around with the layers a bit to test things, and though the mountains are a bit harsh black right now, it looks like they'll do what I want them to when all is in place.

    Took a screenshot for this upload, 25% of fullsize (the unshaded mountains actually look kind of neat at this scale)
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	scaled.jpg 
Views:	127 
Size:	259.6 KB 
ID:	21755  

    My finished maps
    "...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."

  6. #6
    Community Leader Facebook Connected torstan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Posts
    4,199

    Default

    Interesting. I always work the other way around. Fully detailed line drawing and then go for the colour. I like your way. Looking good, and I feel your pain on the mountains. But it is the only way to get it looking just so 10 out of 10 for commitment!

  7. #7
    Guild Artisan Juggernaut1981's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Sydney Australia
    Posts
    677

    Default

    Torstan> I think the colouring might just be a "very detailed guide" system. I used a massive brush and kind of "scribbled" where I wanted things to end up... I get the feeling Coyote just does it with a bit more care and a smaller brush.
    "Sacrificing minions... is there any problem it cannot solve?" - Order of the Stick


    Some of the books I have written, or am still writing...
    My Lulu Store

  8. #8
    Community Leader Facebook Connected torstan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Posts
    4,199

    Default

    I totally agree - it's just that my scribbling is done with hard round brush on one layer that I then reduce the opacit of and work ove the top of on a new layer. I don't add colour until later. I like the approach of throwing a bit of colour in early on.

  9. #9
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    1,945

    Default

    Juggernaut is correct, I like to have the areas laid out with colours so I can see how they're going to overlap, what I want to put where, and get an idea when zoomed way out as to whether it looks reasonably viable in a geologic sense.

    As for the actual colours and such, I have done some where I do all the detail work first then do colours at the end. But having worked in both ways, I've decided I like getting at least the basic colours in first so I have a better visual in my minds eye on how things will look when they're done, plus in cases like this it can give the client an idea of how the final product will come together with the colours.. the Dark Lands map is an even more extreme example of that, I also wanted to make sure as I was drawing that the blood smudging effect I was using wouldn't interfere with other layers, and so on. The other thing this allows is that if I get worn out from working on one aspect, I can always put time into textures and still progress on the work instead of taking an outright break. yay for efficiency

    Incidentally, I used a 200px (with the image size what it is, that's a relatively medium size) soft brush for the terrain guides with each colour on a separate layer in their own folder, then set the opacity/blending modes so that I could see what I was doing without it interfering with the rest of the work, and turn on/off each layer if I feel the need Might be a bit overkill, but I find it's more flexible than doing all the guidelines on the same layer. You just need to go "D'oh, I wish I would have done that differently" once
    I guess you could say I'm evolving my workflow

    [edit] Oh yeah, mountain update.. basic shadows are done, about to start detail work!
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	scaled.jpg 
Views:	98 
Size:	262.6 KB 
ID:	21780  
    Last edited by Coyotemax; 02-03-2010 at 08:10 PM.

    My finished maps
    "...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."

  10. #10
    Guild Adept moutarde's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Vancouver
    Posts
    485

    Default

    Not overkill at all. Through much trial and error (and massive amounts of redrawing) I've learned that there's no such thing as too many layers

Page 1 of 9 12345 ... LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •