Das emperyale Lvramion und umliegende Länder

[MetzgerWilli]

This is my first drawing and also my first finished project (yay!) in GIMP (and any program for that matter). I hope you enjoy the map, thanks for your comments and assistance during the WiP.

Lvramion Finished.jpg
Here is a dropbox link for a higher quality version (133MB).
____________________________

I made the map for a future DnD campaign with friends. As this is my first project, there are variations in quality and style in different areas. For drawing the mountains, forests and villages I make great use of brushes I found on DeviantArt, and later started drawing and adding my own mountain ranges, cliffs, villages and vegetation. As for the scale, 1 border bar equals 100 miles, so the pictured area is 3900x2600 miles.
The title is German and means "Emperyal Lvramion (Loo-ra-me-on) and surrounding lands".

The font used is called "Dumbledor".

Brushes used:
StarRaven's Sketchy Cartography Brushes
StarRaven's Calligraphic Cartography Brush
I-A-Grafix's Hand-draw-map-brush

For the border I made great use of this tutorial by arsheesh.

Pictures and textures used:
Paper texture by Sarai
The "space part" in the upper left corner is from NASA's site (www.jpl.nasa.gov/).
The pegasus, unicorn, scorpion, the raven, the two ships and the maelstrom are not! drawn by me, but cropped out from the maps of the Amiga games Amberstar and Ambermoon, both by Michael Hellmich. I created the map around them, since these maps and the games they were about meant so much to me when I was a child. I did not get any permission for this, but hope it to be ignored/tolerated as I do not have commercial intend in any form.

[Greg]

A great looking first map Metzger! Even if a lot of it is using brushes and what not, it's still a lovely looking map and I imagine has been a great experience to do. I like your colours a lot and you've blended it the imported drawings well. I don't like the planets in the top left as it throws the perspective off somewhat and looks very strange with the crinkly edge next to it (though perhaps that's what you were going for).

Anyway, a nice looking map that I'm sure you are proud with. I hope to see more maps from you in the future and as you get into it, see you creating more of your own elements too!

[MetzgerWilli]

It certainly was a great experience, and I learned a ton (most importantly not make the map size too big for your computer to handle... This made experiments quite tedious later on).
I am very thankful for the brushes I used, as I would never have started if it wasn't for those. But it is indeed even more rewarding to draw and copy-paste your own work, as I found out later on.

Thank you very much for your words, and also for the rep.

[Greg]

Not a problem! And yes, I was going to say that higher resolution copy is a pretty huge file size so I'm not surprised if things started going a bit strange/slow later on.

[pcolin]

Hi MetzgerWilli !
What a map ! What a great job. impressive and exactely style i'm working on....

[Josiah VE]

Fantastic! That looks awesome, and especially for a first map too! Wow.
I haven't used preset brushes a lot for my maps, but those sketchy cartography brushes can sure make something beautiful! The colours looks great, and one of the things I like most about it, it's massive size. There is so much detail, it's great. The planet looks awesome too.
How did you colour it with the sketchy cartography and other brushes? Did you lay in the colour on the brushes themselves or did you colour it afterwards? And how did you keep the lines from the brushes from overlapping? Those water strokes around the coast really add to it.
One question, the parchment texture you linked to is 4000x4000 in size, but your map is much larger, did you make it seamless or something?
Overall a excellent first map, though I think it is best viewed at 50% (at 100% it's a bit blurry). Out of curiosity, how long did this project take you?

[MetzgerWilli]

Not a problem! And yes, I was going to say that higher resolution copy is a pretty huge file size so I'm not surprised if things started going a bit strange/slow later on.

Yeah, saving took between 2 and 5 minutes, as did adding layers, moving objects around, etc. And there always was the threat of Gimp crashing, which happened a few times =/, so I had to save rather often. I never had my RAM filled completely up before this, hehe.

Hi MetzgerWilli !
What a map ! What a great job. impressive and exactely style i'm working on....

I'm fluttered and looking forward to seeing it

Fantastic! That looks awesome, and especially for a first map too! Wow.
I haven't used preset brushes a lot for my maps, but those sketchy cartography brushes can sure make something beautiful! The colours looks great, and one of the things I like most about it, it's massive size. There is so much detail, it's great. The planet looks awesome too.
How did you colour it with the sketchy cartography and other brushes? Did you lay in the colour on the brushes themselves or did you colour it afterwards? And how did you keep the lines from the brushes from overlapping? Those water strokes around the coast really add to it.

Thank you a lot! I put down the brush stamps in multiple layers and erased any overlapping stuff. Afterwards I added my own drawings and colored it all.

One question, the parchment texture you linked to is 4000x4000 in size, but your map is much larger, did you make it seamless or something?
Overall a excellent first map, though I think it is best viewed at 50% (at 100% it's a bit blurry). Out of curiosity, how long did this project take you?

I extended the size of the size of the texture to fit the map (12k x 8k). Since I did not intend to show any details of the texture, this was no problem quality wise. The texture sadly is not seamless (nor did I find any seamless paper textures), else I would have done that.
I have worked on the map for a about a 15 months, whenever I found free time and wasn't on the road, and I estimate to have put around 600-700 hours into it (of which a lot is just looking at it I guess). I had never worked with a drawing program before, so this also includes the whole learning process.

Alter Falter, zwei dicke Daumen nach oben!
That's definately the most beautiful map I've ever seen to use StarRaven's brushes! There are a few locations that you seem to have forgotten to color, and some of the other locations (villages, towns, etc.) could, at least in my opinion, use, say, 25-40% more saturated colors, but by and larger this map really is a sight to behold! The map border with the planets and all those wonderful symbols really are gorgeous!

Hehe, Danke Mann, dickes Kompliment! The brushes really make it a lot easier and more motivating to get into map drawing, and StarRaven's set is the best at this.
I guess I still have to improve my quality control, I would have loved to go over every "finished" area again, but near the end I also wanted to move on to other projects, and the closer I got to the end, the more I wanted to finish it. But I'll keep that in mind for my next project.

[Josiah VE]

I extended the size of the size of the texture to fit the map (12k x 8k). Since I did not intend to show any details of the texture, this was no problem quality wise. The texture sadly is not seamless (nor did I find any seamless paper textures), else I would have done that.
I have worked on the map for a about a 15 months, whenever I found free time and wasn't on the road, and I estimate to have put around 600-700 hours into it (of which a lot is just looking at it I guess). I had never worked with a drawing program before, so this also includes the whole learning process.

GIMP just has a "Make Seamless" button in map, in filters. I've used that before.

Yikes!! That's a long time!! I guess that makes sense, for such a big map, but I was expecting less than that, especially because it is not all hand drawn. But it takes a long time for the learning process as well. It takes me a lot longer to make maps than an expert I'm sure. Once again, good job on the great map, it is well earned with that much effort put in!

[Wired]

Alter Falter, zwei dicke Daumen nach oben!

That's definately the most beautiful map I've ever seen to use StarRaven's brushes! There are a few locations that you seem to have forgotten to color, and some of the other locations (villages, towns, etc.) could, at least in my opinion, use, say, 25-40% more saturated colors, but by and larger this map really is a sight to behold! The map border with the planets and all those wonderful symbols really are gorgeous!

[Ilanthar]

Nice work, with a lot of dedication, clearly. I like the colors choices and the general land shapes. I think some labels are a bit odd (some are sharper than others).