The Empire D'Aen

[pkstephens]

Hello all!

Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

This map represents the setting for a novel I've been working on for the last [cough]... several years. The map has been through too many revisions to count. I've got topographic versions, versions with climate bands, versions done all in bright pastels (don't ask), versions with different place names, versions with different geography, and (naturally) giant, bloated Photoshop files where the versions layer on top of each other like old paint.

But finally, I think I've come to a place where I'm happy with this version. Happy enough to share, anyway. After lurking for so long, finally posting is scary and exciting. To say that this map owes a debt to this forum is to say, well... what I just said. It's a pastiche of styles and ideas (and a few brushes) that I've pulled and from innumerable threads over the years. I actually thought of trying to go back through the forum to log every thread in a long kudos list, but I realized that the list would just be a Borges map of the forum itself; I learn something from every thread and every map.
Thanks to everyone.

On to the map.

Started (if memory serves) in Fractal Terrains, moved to Gimp for processing, and (in a decision I have had much cause to regret) MS Design for vector and font work. Then, lately, ported to Photoshop.
For the longest time, everything was height-map and topographic and cluttered, but I eventually converted to the mountain brushes as I cut back on the clutter. I think there might still be too many mountain elements.

Comments and critiques welcome!

--PKS


AenN_2014_12.jpg

[Formal Abu]

I particularly like your road / river systems. Did you try filling in the central lanke area and not like it?

[pkstephens]

I did... sort of. I played around with various fills of blue and was never happy with how it looked. Still not happy with how the river blue ends abruptly at the lake either...

This map is actually embedded in a corner of another map that I'll post soon and in the embedded version, there's no fade t the shoreline so the central lake is colored.