Stonerang - First City Map

[Brand]

This is the city of Stonerang, set in the cold north.

During winter months, the harbor is closed up. When the tide is out, most of the water between the islands and the mainland is gone, making those roads passable. When the tide is in, those roads are under water. The independently walled area in the top middle is going to be an Academy of some kind.

Stonerang.png

This is my first town map (and second map ever)... Not done yet, but basically was trying to duplicate Pyrandon's exceptional city tutorial using Gimp instead of PS. I haven't gotten to the end of the process yet, but thought I'd throw up the WIP.

Please be gentle, but firm! I'm not that artistic of a guy, but I do enjoy maps, and would love to get better at making them.

I know my water is atrocious. I hadn't read some of the great river specific tutorials when I first did the layout, and even if I had, rivers and I have not agreed with each other since day 1.

I was curious also if anybody had feedback on making this a winterscape instead of a greenscape. I tried just switching the hill palettes to whites, but the end result looked really bright and unnatural.

For the wall across the water, I am imaging several giant towers set deep into the waters, with enormous gates between them to allow merchant ships into Stonerang to harbor at the port on the left. The right side had too large a gap to connect... But maybe I should? Or maybe try and narrow the left side a bit more?

I consider all feedback a gift, so please let me know thoughts and ideas!

[ChickPea]

Hi Brand, welcome to the Guild! This is pretty damn decent for your second map ever! I think you've got nice colours that contrast well with each other, and I like the shading on the green areas to indicate height. The one thing that jumps out at me right now is how your roads have a slight blur on them. It looks a little odd compared to the sharp-edged city walls. Also, some of the smaller roads look a little, um, scribbly? Not sure if you're planning to do more with them?

I think your water isn't terrible but could maybe do with a little more texture. Also, your coastlines are quite smooth, whereas I think they'd be more ragged-edged in real life.

But overall, this is a fantastic start! I wish I had some advice about the winterscape, because that something I've yet to try myself, so I'm hoping for some tips too!

Have some rep to welcome you to the Guild.

[Brand]

Thanks for the feedback!

Scribbly is a good word. (; I was not prepared for the painstaking work of drawing hundreds of tiny roads. I think I should have started with a smaller town for my first. I'm not sure about the road blur. I tried to sharpen them and ended up making them worse. I'll fight with them a little bit and see what I can do.

Let me take another pass at it and see what I come up with.

[Azélor]

I could be wrong but I think fortifications over the water is very uncommon. To be useful, the walls would need to block the water or have a grille to prevent the invaders from entering but it would remain a structural weakness. Blocking the rivers is a bad idea because it's vital for commerce.

Your idea would certainly cost a fortune to build, assuming it's possible to do with their current level of technology. Although, the gates over the rivers could work but I feel it's a compromise between security and prosperity.

[Brand]

Thanks for the feedback. I agree regarding the cost... Even assuming a land with magic. I'm making some updates, and I'll try without blocking the rivers and see how it feels.

[Pixie]

Hi Brand.

As soon as I saw your map, I thought of this location:
https://www.google.pt/maps/@36.99823.../data=!3m1!1e3

It seems quite similar. Regional rivers and streams emptying into a shallow coast, where sand dunes define the ocean limit quite far from the actual coastline. Now, this area is great for fishing and all, but those islands...

1. are sandy and shifting,
2. are absolutely exposed to the elements, namely, very windy,
3. have no sources of fresh water,
4. are cut off from the mainland by strips of water with strong currents dominated by the tides.

As you can see from the real example, people choose not to live in them (I can tell you that this choice has been done since the stone age, Faro and other settlements along this coast are roman or pre-roman). I would ditch that part of the city.

As for the stone wall over water, I agree with Azelor, it's not feasible. If they have the technology to build that, they sure have the tech to build a stonefort and place cannons on it, and that would both be more effective and a fraction of the cost. Star-shaped forts on those islands would be quite more realistic. Of course, this depends on you - whether you are making a Tolkien-esque city or one based in reality.

[Brand]

Thanks for the feedback!

I had a more drawn-out reply that I committed the cardinal sin of not writing in a separate editor and pasting into my forum window... Timeout and all message lost. It actually works out for the best, because I somehow missed the last paragraph of your reply and asked a bunch of questions that are effectively answered by your paragraph.

To summarize:
The map is for a city to be used in a table-top RPG game. I wanted to make a settlement of some kind that would actually have to endure points 2 and 4... It adds to the flavor of the town, and creates some unique situations. Rather than sandy, I was imagining this city in a frozen northern climate, with river paths carved by glaciers, and the city was set on some type of tall rocky outcrop. I hadn't thought about fresh water. (; Long-story short though: Even if I contrive a weird situation to make geographic sense (assuming its possible) and I outfit the town with magic enough to handle the walls, I'm still left with the question of "Why bother?" Why not do things the easy way? Style is only as good as the reasoning behind it.

So, working on a revision with a mainland city pushed back from the islands and coast, and then an outpost on an island to serve as the place where boats need to dock to bring supplies to this icy city... The paths to the mainland coast are too treacherous for most large naval merchant craft. Do you think that sounds more practical? How large of a outpost/settlement do you think might be supportable on that island?

Thanks again for the feedback!

[Kiba]

Hey there! Looks like most of the points have been covered, and now you just need to convert the bright summer colors to winter!

To express winter in a map, you want to go with grays, dark browns, and maybe some blues. Everything's more "desaturated" than "blank." Here's a picture of a "snow" scene (Sansa Stark in the Eyrie) in Game of Thrones:

https://mnlfilmclub.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/181.png

The snow is white, yes, but everything's desaturated and gray/blue-tinged except for Sansa's hair, which is red. I think for a similar effect on your map, leaving the city's brown/chestnut alone while desaturating the other colors would work very well.

Then for a non-snowy winter scene (appropriately, at Winterfell). This would be more "late fall" than actual winter, but the heavy gray/brown tones of the land are very appropriate starting points for your map.

http://images.techtimes.com/data/ima...ader.jpg?w=600

And for the texture of the ice that would be on your rivers and the coasts, here's Disney's Frozen!





Look at the ice and how it spreads. It looks chaotic, but it actually just builds on the same type of octagon shape--the pattern, and therefore the ice, just multiplies and multiplies until Elsa ends up freezing everything. With your city, the ice would be concentrated at the edges of town since they obviously wouldn't want ice on the port or the stretches of river.

Edit: For "Tall and rocky outcrop," you want to go with the Greyjoy's castle of Pyke (also from Game of Thrones). It was originally built on a normal cliff but thanks to the wonders of erosion, the remaining castle is on a bunch of sea stacks. And instead of moving the castle, they somehow got enough dumb/brave people to BUILD BRIDGES to reconnect the castle pieces together.

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2.../9/9d/Pyke.jpg

"Why go through all the trouble to build a castle on a tiny-ass rock?" Just see how utterly magnificent Pyke looks. I would not want to go through the trouble of sieging that thing, because 1) they could just get some ships to resupply them when needed, and 2) there is a high likelihood of falling and drowning. Or bashing your head in on the many, many rocks during your fall.

Never underestimate the power of "awesome." Maybe they do it BECAUSE it's impractical and they know their enemies will wet themselves when trying to siege it. There's a real-life castle built on a sea-stack precisely for being awesome, but unfortunately I can't remember its name.

[Brand]

Thanks for the feedback! Any advice on how to create some of those "frozen fractals all around?" (; Would I use the same techniques I would use for grass, but change change the color palettes, or are there other filters/techniques that might work?

I'm afraid I'm not really artistically inclined, so the more I can bundle into programmatic processes, the better.

Thanks again!

[Kiba]

I'm thinking for programming/computer processes:

-Desaturate the colors on the map till there's just hints of green, then adjust the hues more towards blue/purple. Or run it through a blue filter and see if that works. (Make sure the town itself is on a separate layer, though!)

-Ice tends to make things fuzzy or blurry in a far-off view, so I think once you're done adjusting the colors, use either a blurring or air spray tool to frost the coast/walls/rivers with white.