Untitled Campaign Map

[Coyotemax]

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!