Fenwatch (medieval border town)

Here is my first map made using a combination of GIMP and RPG City Generator. I merged and modified the techniques discussed in RobA's regional map tutorial and Pyrandon's city map tutorial. Both of which are fantastic!

A bit about the map...
This map was created as part of a D&D 3.5 campaign that I am running. My players have been operating out of the town for a bit and the map legend reflects things that are important to them rather than to a general visitor to the town.

Fenwatch is a small border town and layover stop on the Eastern Tradeway running out of the kingdom of Turimor. The town is home to the Wayshepherds Mercenary Guild who provide escorts to the caravans that move along the Tradeway.

The town also runs a brisk trade in magical and alchemical reagents and is famous for its hogs which are specially bred to root out magic ingredients in the surrounding swamps.

A goodly start! But I would suggest desaturating the green...it's quite loud <s>

If you need to find a colour just download a photo of a trees from above and use the colour picker on a 5x5 average setting...or just play with it.

Cool map ! Would fit well into the CWBP Thrubland region too :D

Well, have some reputation for posting your first map. And a city map at that... great, I love cities :D

Anyway, I would definitely suggest toning down the green colors a bit. At the moment the forest is sticking out, while you want the town to stick out. Otherwise all the elements work pretty well together. Next time you might want to give some of the houses a different color to give the impression they have different roofs (making the town seem a bit more organic).

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Originally Posted by ravells

A goodly start! But I would suggest desaturating the green...it's quite loud <s>

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Yeah, I agree about the green. I have a version of the map with a desaturating color filter that I actually like better than this version color-wise. I will probably upload it when I get back to the computer where the original GIMP file is stored.

When I colorized the forest layer, I used a couple of dark olives, but when I normalized the selection, everything turned super vivid.

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Originally Posted by Gandwarf

Next time you might want to give some of the houses a different color to give the impression they have different roofs (making the town seem a bit more organic).

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Thanks for the rep!

The buildings were definitely the toughest part for me. I was trying to adapt Pyrandon's PS city tutorial to GIMP. Unfortunately, the PS version uses a layer style of bevel and emboss while creating the buildings, which is not available in GIMP.

When I applied the bevel filter to the building layer, the bevel was not as sharp as I was hoping for and the emboss filter always turned the buildings a light gray, almost silvery color regardless of what they looked like before.

I ended up using several different layers at various levels of transparency. A bevel and emboss layer for shape
A shingle texture for, well... texture
a color overlay to get rid of the silvery sheen caused by the embossing filter
and several blending overlays.

I did a lot of experimenting with things while working on the buildings and feel like my process and final product wound up a little muddy in that regard. I intend to revisit this on my next map... possibly after downloading some python scripts to help me more easily modify textures and the like.

Okay, here's an updated version of the map. I added a couple filter layers to the forest to give it a gloomier look more appropriate to a swamp. I also added a colored overlay to the buildings to add some variety to the roof colors in an effort to create a more organic look. Then, just for fun, I put together a heraldric seal for the town featuring two boars rampant with a potion flask between.

Ah, much better. Some great improvements. Forest looks good and doesn't draw all the attention anymore. Love the heraldric shield!

very nice!!
I especially love the bit about the hogs, and the way you did the fields.

Very nice for your first attempt, and you updates make it even better.

The only thing I really don't care for all that much is the trees, they still look more like green hills to me. *shrugs*