Subcontinent: The Westerlands in Gimp

[arsheesh]

So hows that map coming? Looking forward to seeing an update.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[geoff_nunn]

It's actually coming along pretty well. I had to put things on pause for just a bit to focus on immediate game-planning needs. I had a big session last week and another this Thursday.

Mapwise, I have reached a point where I am satisfied with the natural features and have started working on political borders. The game that this map is intended for was originally designed using an inside-out process (i.e. I began with just an idea for a town and the surrounding countryside) as such, I actually hadn't fleshed out or even named a lot of the countries or cities that populate the region. I ended up enlisting the help of my gf, who is also one of my players, to start solidifying some of the countries. I'm not sure if I want to include all the cities I have developed for my game world, or just the capitols and major population centers.

Right this second, I had an idea to include all the cities my PCs have visited in one color, major population centers that they haven't visited in another, and player origin cities in a third color, or at least with a special symbol. and maybe include an Indiana Jones-style overlay marking the path of my PC's travel.

[arsheesh]

Hm, interesting idea. You know another thought would be to create two separate maps, one for the Campaign Maps portion of your OP site and one for either your adventure logs. The first would be fully fleshed out, and would serve the purpose of giving a general lay of the land. The second map could be used to record the journeys of your party. It could either be a map containing only those cities your adventurers have visited or are otherwise familiar with (using your color scheme), or it could be a duplicate of your fully fleshed out map with dotted lines between locations indicating the places your party has traveled to. You could even add a dark black layer with toned down opacity over the top of the map and then use a fuzzy eraser and (on the black layer) trace over the areas your party had traveled to, thus highlighting your party's journeys. Just some food for thought.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[geoff_nunn]

Okay, I finally have a weekend at home where I can spend some time plonking away at this. I've started working on the map labels. The countries are finished along with the labels for the major landforms. I will probably add more labels to forests, bays and the like later, but since this map is for a campaign that I've been building from the inside out, it's a major pain to come up with all the names on the fly. So, for now, I'm focusing on capitols, major cities, major holy sites, battlefields and ruins (essentially stuff that will appear in the cartouche.) I've got the placement of the capitols finished, though I haven't applied a final color and other effects to the symbols. I'm working on place names.

[geoff_nunn]

Wow, I just took a look at the attached jpg version of the map and realized it blurred the crap out of the icons!

[geoff_nunn]

Okay, I uploaded a higher res png, but couldn't put it on CG, because of size restrictions. You can see the image here.

[Tigon]

Looks very nice. You might want to consider putting in a thin shadow for your settlement labels, just to allow them to stand out/be more readable against fluctuating terrain colours behind. There's a bit of continental shelving running in a very straight east-west line in the south-western-most corner too but that may of course reflect upon some off-map terrain that's part of the larger world. Favourite bit: Khebir... very nice.

[geoff_nunn]

Hey, thanks Tigon!

I've definitely got it in the plans to add an outline or shadow around the city labels to make them pop. I also plan to add a bit of depth to the various icons. If you look at the icon for Bailos in the country of Vakarus, you can see where I tested out a bit of an emboss and outline combo.

Also, thanks for pointing out that errant shelf. I think it's probably an issue with my rendering process. I'll likely either crop the map, or try to cover it with a border or cartouche, because my map copy where I could re-render it is many saves ago.

[arsheesh]

Hey again Geoff,

Nice choice of font. As far as the icons go, to be honest whereas the bright red seems a bit jarring against the green landscape, the orange doesn't tend to stand out very well. I'd recommend experimenting with other colors. If you want to go with red for instance, perhaps choose a dark burgundy. Otherwise, looking good.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Zanan]

Seems you've not been around of late. Still hoping for a reply about your maps ...