The Sargossean Bloc

[Nonsequitur]

Situated on the edge of the known world, the nations of Ekumenia and Kataphon are only a hundred miles or so from the Last Great Dark (see upper right of the third pic), a zone of unyielding night that some believe is the last vestige of the Primal Darkness that covered the world before the arrival of the Sun.

I've tried to branch out a bit with my approach to this regional map. If anyone has some advice, I'd love to know how to draw dotted (or dashed) curved lines in Photoshop. I'm not nearly done -- well, maybe halfway done -- but I'm fairly happy with how this one is turning out.

:: Ravells Edit:: Hi Nonsequitur, I've attached your images as thumbnails. I know that jpg and png work for thumbnails and bmp does not (you just get a little icon). Not sure about .gif files which were your original file type. I converted them to .pngs and they thumbnailed fine. Suggest you use png format for uploading pictures. cheers Ravs

Any guidance is appreciated. Hopefully I have appeased the River Police here and atoned for my previous transgressions.

[jfrazierjr]

Hey Nonsequitur. If you would be so kind as to edit your post and use the manage attachments feature in the Advanced section to upload your images, the site will automatically make thumbnails for you. It makes it much easier to read your comments and view your pictures without scrolling.

Joe

[jfrazierjr]

If I am reading your 2nd map correctly, there is a slope up to the plateau in Kataphon. In your 3rd pic, your border line makes that disapear. You might want to try overlaying your border line or make it slightly translucent, perhaps with a blur. Likewise, you should consider bluring each of your borders, mainly the one north of the disputed lands (or you could just move the border a bit to the river and be done with it like your other borders.)

I like your shallow sea effect. Did you do that with manual painting techniques or with some filters (or both)?

Your cliff looks nice and very convincing, though I am thinking you may want to try something to the top to make it look like the plateau is curving off into the cliff instead of pasted(ie flat) on top. Not quite sure what to do though...

Joe

Joe

[Nonsequitur]

Hi Joe,

I've tried managing these images as attachments and unfortunately they will not upload. Keep getting the same error message.

I used a stone texture as a base for the shallow sea effect and then went to town with Gaussian blur and the dodge tool.

The Kataphon border is a work in progress. I'm thinking of pulling some of the plateau texture out into Kataphon to create more of a fade.

I'll erase the overlap with Ekumenia/Disputed Land. It does look a little dodgy.

I could probably copy/paste some more texture to that flatness on the northern end of the plateau. Definitely too flat looking atm.

Thanks for the input!

Greg

[Nonsequitur]

Thanks for the help, Ravells!

[jfrazierjr]

I've tried to branch out a bit with my approach to this regional map. If anyone has some advice, I'd love to know how to draw dotted (or dashed) curved lines in Photoshop. I'm not nearly done -- well, maybe halfway done -- but I'm fairly happy with how this one is turning out.

Note 100% sure, but I believe PS has paths, which can be stroked with a variety of brush widths and styles to get a dashed line effect. I know GIMP can do it.

Joe

[GlennZilla]

Note 100% sure, but I believe PS has paths, which can be stroked with a variety of brush widths and styles to get a dashed line effect. I know GIMP can do it.

Joe

Yup it can do it. I personally prefer the pen/path tools of illustrator, so I tend to stick to the selection tools and convert them to a path.

For example, select the area you have the color painted to mark the borders. Once you have the "marching ants" go to the path palette and click the button "Convert to Path". Then you can click on the pen tool and set your pen options to a wide spacing. Select the layer on which you want to draw the dotted line. Finally on the path palette again click the "stroke path" button and presto, done.

For more Photoshop tutorials try www.Tutorialized.com. They have a ton of tutorials on just about every graphics program. The tutorials are usually ad sponsored and thus free.