Kurvantium - An island map

[Jaxilon]

Another experiment: Although when I started I had no real intention of sharing it because I fully expected a horrid mess. It may still be a mess but hopefully it's not too horrid

I hand drew the island, mountains, hills and rivers and scanned that in. I created the forests using an experiment with the Gimpressionist (I call them my most cheating-est forests ever). I was going to draw them by hand but thought, what the heck?

I have to label everything still - that will come next I think.

The first image is a copy of the island without the city markers and then one with them. I drew all the city icons and then colored them digitally.

Seems like there were more experiments on this but I can't recall atm. I think the forests were the big one. The forest to the North East is the 'Deadwood' and fraught with peril I guess, hehe. The purple tower I call "Silly wizard's Tower" but I'll probably come up with a real name for it.

C&C welcome

[Rythal]

Looks good! Imo the horison and ocean are too fuzzy though, and i s'pose it could use some labels.

good stuf though

[ProfGremlin]

Jaxilon, I really like your icons. There's a whimsical feel to them that seems rather playful. For what it's worth, I'd say keep the name "Silly Wizards Tower". Not everything has to be serious

[cjs0216]

Nice map man, the only issue I have with it is that the trees don't seem to fit with the rest of the map...but only slightly

[Ascension]

The forests look great. But not on this style If you put them in a different map and turned down the yellow a bit then they'd be sweet. As for this map, whimsical is a good word and I dig it (except the forests).

[Coyotemax]

I agree about the forests - though I suspect I know the thought behind them.. right now they look more like a texture, they'd be great for an satellite styled map, as Ascension points out - but my first thought was "omg i'd dread drawing that whole forest out by hand.. let' me see if I can come up with some texture fill that'll work instead".. (am i right?)

Another thought about the mountains, when I was doing my protector map I had a similar thing going on though at a much tinier scale - the black line separating the snow from the brown portion of the slopes doesn't feel right - the furthest right mountain and the furthest south peak on the right side of the valley illustrate what I mean, those ones to me look *much* nicer.

[Jaxilon]

First of all, thank you all so much for your thoughts. I always consider what's said and try to visualize it so it's never that I'm not listening - either I'm lost trying to do whatever you said or I'm deciding if I want to do it for this time or save the thought for my next project. I guess there will be times when I don't agree but I'm all about trying new things right now so feel free

I changed that big black line between mountain and snow - Thanks Coyotemax. I could go through and really cut down on the rest of the black lines but then I start feeling like I have to go all realistic and I don't know that this map is ever destined for such things.

Regarding the trees - I was thinking, "I really need to draw some trees now. But first, let me try something".... And those came out. Like I said, initially this was just about trying some experiments and I thought they were close enough that I'd just go with them. They are really easy to make and I figured if nothing else I could use them for some other map. I'm not sure if I want to blow away the trees and draw new ones for this particular map (not that these took me very long). Maybe after a day or two I will feel it.

I am putting another style of water on the 2nd image (it still has the original mountains so ignore that) to see if anyone thinks I should pursue that direction. Rythal got me thinking about it and it might look better with a less radical looking Sea? I'll have to redo the sky but I think this gets the idea of what it would look like with different water. This water needs more character put into it but hopefully it gets the idea of what a different direction would take it.

[Coyotemax]

Wow, those mountains really work! yes, leave the rest of the lines as they are, absolutely! My comment was only in regard to the snow/rock transition
I love the water from the new version myself, really fits the look.

Of course anything I say is opinion only - You're always of course free to ignore me completely But you did ask, so here I am!

[Jaxilon]

Thank you CM, I appreciate your opinion I also kind of like the simpler looking water myself so I think I'll work on it see where that takes me.

[Ramah]

Nice map Jax.

I agree with most of the comments so far. Those forests look great, but not on this map. I can really see them working on another map that uses textures rather than being hand drawn. The other thing that stood out was the blurriness on your original sea and the edge of the globe but you seem to have addressed that somewhat. I much prefer your new sea, I like the colour, but it could do with something to show perspective like the rest of the map. At the moment it looks like a perspective map draped on a flat sea.

It still looks great though.