One issue is that your mountains/forests are pretty sharp and that your city icons, rivers and coastlines are blurry. Also Mountains are nice but not that much convincing as a mountains range (atm it rather looks a pile of rocks).
I came back to drawings! I hope (and believe) that I have improved my skills in the matter (the numerous wonderful maps of the guild are inspiring ).
I'll probably need a few maps for my Ave Tenebrae setting (loosely based on a mix of Howard's Conan, some D&D setting, and the "Ave Tenebrae" board game, of course). So, here's an attempt of the Kingdom of Aquilonia. I'm at the point that I wanted to try a bit of everything, just to see... except for labels and other signs.
I'm really interested of what you think of it, because I'm hesitating about a lot of things...
Aquilonia Kingdom.jpg
One issue is that your mountains/forests are pretty sharp and that your city icons, rivers and coastlines are blurry. Also Mountains are nice but not that much convincing as a mountains range (atm it rather looks a pile of rocks).
Very nice hand work. The trees are particularly good.
Thanks for the feedback (and a quick one, I have to say )!
Well, that was indeed one of my wonderings. I didn't spotted it for the coastlines & rivers, but you're right. As it is far more easier to add a blur, is the test below better?By - Max -
One issue is that your mountains/forests are pretty sharp and that your city icons, rivers and coastlines are blurry.
AKblur.jpg
Sigh... yeah, I just sticked too much to the old world map I guess... I'll redraw that.Also Mountains are nice but not that much convincing as a mountains range (atm it rather looks a pile of rocks).
I think it's a bit better with the blur (at least more consistent overall). Maybe if you'll add a touch of color on city icons, that would make them pop up more.
I think the pattern for the swamps is a bit dense. It's almost as dense as the forests, and thus hard to discern from the forests without looking closely.
Here's a new version with mountains redrawn (again, not all the mountains, just a try). I lowered a bit the blur effect, better?
AK new mts.jpg
@ - Max - : haha, in fact, color is my other main wondering... Colored or not, I mean. How you'd you color the cities, I've no idea (never done that before, I think).
@ acrsome : that is an excellent advice, thanks a lot! I did'nt noticed, but now you mentioned it, it seems obvious!
As for the color icons you could ever color them in red like on 16-17th centuries maps or go with a base color, some shade/highlights (don't know how big the icons are actually)
Yeah, the icons are pretty small (it's the ones I used before for my Nightfall map, with some addings). So, I followed your advice and colored them in red.
I added a few things and changed the swamps. I will add other elements, and the desert things on the south part.
AK new dvpts.jpg
Why not a full opacity red? Maybe because the icons outline is too strong and that makes them very dark at the end?