Wargame map- Son of the Dragon (WIP)

[timallen]

Hi all:

Well, I got another project handed to me by the boys at White Dog Games. Its a game that will cover the Real, historical battles of Count Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler, as he was known to his buddies ;-).

First I was told they wanted a 11x17 map and that the hexes would have to hold 6/8 inch square counters. Then they sent me the prototype artwork done by the designer. Not what you'd call a work of art, but it does show where everything should go.

[timallen]

I talked (emailed actually) a fair amount with the designer and publisher to get a better idea of what this should look like. They wanted a more-or-less green map as they were going to have counters that would be predominantly white with red and burnt orange colours and they wanted the green to make them stand out. There are three different kinds of man-made terrain- castles, cities, and walled cities.

Last night I fired up the ol'espresso machine and went at it for 4-5 hours strait. By the end of the night (early morning actually) I had made up the following map. Looks pretty good I think. I used some good tips picked up here on the forums to make the mountains, which I think worked out great. The cities are grabbed out of CC3. They look a bit out of place I think. Have to fiddle with them still. Maybe they just need toning down...dunno. They seem out of place somehow.

[Steel General]

Looks pretty nice, though a larger/higher-rez version would be better.

[timallen]

Here is a larger image.

[timallen]

I can do that.

I never know how large I should make them. Is there a limit to the number or size of the images we can post?

[Steel General]

There is a megapixel count and/or size limit: Approx 33Mpxl or 4.7MB (depending on the file type)

[hohum]

You have some round brush marks (eraser) between 0308/0408. It isn't as much of a problem with the higher res, but for some reason for me it always takes a second for my eye to not think that the peaks are actually valleys. I'm not sure why that is but I find it disturbing. The towns look okay, but stand out because everything else has a soft focus (blur). Not a bad looking map.

[timallen]

Thanks for pointing that out. I would have completely missed it otherwise. The towns have been softened up and the brush marks fixes. Not sure how to fix the valley vs peaks problem. It looks OK to me but I know what you mean. I have the same problem with bevels in photoshop- sometimes I cant figure out if I'm what I am looking at is concave or convex.

The designer sent me more changes. A "trade route" is now in the center of the map (a road connecting some of the cities), one new city, names for most of the rivers, and shields/banners for the cities that start allied to certain factions. The shields are a nice addition; they add more period theme and flavor, IMO.

Drat! I forgot my files at home. I'll have to post an image update later tonight or tomorrow.

[timallen]

Here we go. I think I am pretty close to being done. I've sent a copy off to White Dog Games and am just waiting to hear back.

[Aval Penworth]

Don't worry, it looks very good. Even though the rivers don't make sense . I hope they sell a bucket-load of games and give you big bonus cheque.