Thread: Haibianr - WIP city map

Hi all,
I've done some "terrain shaping" in this version, painting on the various layers to try to suggest hills. They're not quite steep enough for my tastes and the forest is still too uniform. More work there I guess.

I'm making this post primarily to see whether you guys think I should go with the layer style I dropped on the forests and building (just walls for now) or go plain? It kind of ruins the hand-drawn look to some degree but it does look sort of neat. With or without it I think I've got a lot of painting to do to improve the look of the forests.

My last few hours have been spent painstakingly creating a mask for the buildings so i can paint in that layer without worrying too much about staying in the lines. I got the basics of the mask together by messing with my outlines layer but I've had to do a lot of hand-erasing to get it cleaned up. Need to learn how to do this stuff more automatically - I'm sure there's a better way than the ones I'm using.
M

I think this map looks great so far! My only nitpick would be that the forest looks a bit too beveled to my taste. The lighter edge almost seems to shine. But maybe that's just my eyes...

What are those dark blue patches with lines in it in the forest?

Whatever you decide upon I think it totally kicks booty. Makes me envious for sure.

Thanks, guys. Yeah, I think the bevel is maybe too much too. I'll play with it a bit more as I go along. Still some work to do on the forest anyway.

Originally Posted by Gandwarf

What are those dark blue patches with lines in it in the forest?

Ah. Those would be terraced fields, mostly for rice production. That's not their final color...just one I selected from a Google Earth map of somewhere remote in Yunnan province. I'll vary the color a bit and do some texturing to suggest some plantings in some of them, etc.

Originally Posted by Ascension

...I think it totally kicks booty. Makes me envious for sure.

That is generous praise. I myself am still quite envious of your regional styles. Trying very hard to get some of your techniques down.

M

Don't bother, my tuts are for a totally different style. I'll be sitting in your class learning from you

@Ascension: Maybe I'll learn enough from doing this one to do a tutorial Probably take me a few more goes before I can "patent" any techniques though. The guy I wish would do a tut on this is Terry Maranda. I can't even begin to copy his style...which is why mine has been washed with layer styles.

Anyhoo...been working on buildings and some other stuff. OMG. I thought drawing it was tedious. I created a mask so I could paint the buildings without worry (took forever but it was worth it) and then started laying down color. I'm using pretty saturated colors for now so I can see the variation but I'll rinse them out later. I'm also using an exaggerated layer style with bevel and drop shadow. I'll back that off later too.

I attached the latest WIP along with the layer mask in black and white...just because I thought it looks kind of cool.
M

The housing really looks amazing so far!
My only suggestion would be that in a city this large some of the houses would probably start sharing walls, as things get more and more cramped. It tends to make the city look a bit more realistic. But do what you want with this suggestion of course.

I can't help but think I'd hate to be one of the rich folk if this place came under attack. Living right along the walls, those look like they're going to be the first casualties. On the other hand, if the walls are more being built as a statement, it's going to be a lot cheaper since they only have to wall in 3 sides now

Darn nice map though!

Thanks. Good points, both. I'll try to address them.

Originally Posted by Gandwarf

My only suggestion would be that in a city this large some of the houses would probably start sharing walls, as things get more and more cramped. It tends to make the city look a bit more realistic. But do what you want with this suggestion of course.

This one has been confounding me a bit. I don't have a scale defined yet (probably should have) but, if you look at the size of the smallest houses it's clear that there are some pretty large structures in there, especially in the city center and along the main streets. I had intended those to be individual buildings that had either merged together or were so close that the alleyways weren't apparent at the scale of the map. The way I'm coloring it, however, makes them look like monolithic buildings.

Scale-wise, I'm thinking that the large walls are on the order of 25'-50' thick. I'll have to see what that means for the various buildings and figure out what to do about the rooflines. I appreciate you calling this out, though, because it sort of gives me a poke to get that figured out.

Originally Posted by Coyotemax

I can't help but think I'd hate to be one of the rich folk if this place came under attack. Living right along the walls, those look like they're going to be the first casualties. On the other hand, if the walls are more being built as a statement, it's going to be a lot cheaper since they only have to wall in 3 sides now

Ahhhh. The city actually slopes up quite a lot towards those walls, a couple hundred feet on west side and less on the east. Steep hills continue up behind them - I have been, thus far, unable to indicate this on the map! So, they're not meant to repel typical medieval massed-attacks and siege engines...more for keeping out mounted barbarians (orcs riding worgs, in this case) and D&D-style monsters. Living near the walls is a status symbol, as it gets you on the hill with a view and away from the smelly harbor. Yeah, and a free (and impressive) wall, so you only have to build three more.
M