WIP. Paultopia: an introduction (of sorts)

[bradlavario]

This semester, a friend of mine talked me into taking an e-commerce class. It was not the direction I planned to go, but I said what the hell, I have been unemployed for some time, whats one more class in a different direction. I had done HTML and photoshop stuff many years ago (1997-2001) so it was not hard to pick up.

I told my friend Paul about the new class, (a long time friend, different guy than the one I was taking a class with) and he began to instruct me in CSS. (something I had not seen, nor understood much, but I picked it up quickly) This lead to doing photoshop and CSS/HTML constantly for the last 2 months, homework, personal website, I am even learning WordPress.

So Paul tells me the other day in google chat... "I have a photoshop challenge for you..."

...and that's how it began

He started to explain... "you make maps..." and he showed me some of your links here, and sent me a bunch of textures from various sources.

While chatting I made this in about 30 minutes...

island.jpg

[bradlavario]

Later on I decided to put it on parchment (this is not my parchment)

I smushed it a little to get it to fit.

paultopia.png

[bradlavario]

...and lastly, I learned how to make parchment later that night (from youtube) and put it on my own paper.

paultopia.jpg

My main goal is to help a friend see this stuff is not too hard, you just have to get in there, learn some techniques, follow some tutorials, and make a map.

[furiousuk]

Speak for yourself if you think it's easy!!

Good work on the map though, and I agree that just anybody can do it given the right direction (you'll find that here), the motivation (you'll also find a healthy amount of that too) and the perseverence (you'll have to bring that yourself!)

If you want any critique some of the coastlines and the lake and rivers look quite angular and the land looks fairly flat (apart from the great looking mountainous area in the middle of course) but it's a cracking start to the map. Some of your texture blending is really well done. I like the foresty area at the top-middle (particularly the inside bit) and I love the farmed area in the top right.

[bradlavario]

Yeah I am finding angular rivers seem to be my nemesis thus far as I am drawing on a relatively small canvas. I notice the pro's go much larger, but when I try to get too big, its harder for me to conceptualize it.

I think this one is as done as it gets, I have moved on to doing other ones, mostly just practice, or attempts to follow tutorials and winding up with something entirely different than what I was supposed to have. =)

[ChicagoMay]

Love the textures of the land, but agree its very angular. How did you do your textures for it? I'd love to learn your technique.

[bradlavario]

There is no real technique its just pattern fill. The texture is a collection of tiles and or brushes a friend downloaded. Some are CoyoteMax' brushes and others are downloaded from terraficta.com. I am still trying to come up with my own technique for ground and trees.... so far UN-successful. Like I said, I am just starting out, have only been doing this 3 days...

[paulbhartzog]

yep. the fact that Brad ramped up so quickly gave me hope, although I've been in here for 2 yrs and have yet to produce anything showable. Looking forward to giving it another go.

[bradlavario]

@ChigacoMay

The textures I used are here:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...Textures/page6

CoyoteMax's post.