April 2010 Challenge Entry - Boran's Big Travel Map

[Ascension]

Thought I'd be the first to throwdown and put up what I've got going...set the bar for the rest of you to raise. Spent a few hours doing the terrain and artsiness and will spend some more time doing the detail and flavor. Just a small chunk for now. And of course the first thing I write has a typo in it...naturally.

### Latest WIP ###

[Daelin]

I take it that the hand-scrawled bit is just a sketch of the layout and the colored part is how it will eventually look? The finished part definitely looks interesting, very artistic with all those filters its been run through. Nice start.

[Sapiento]

Nice start, Ascension! Assume I right that the coloured part is the result of a PS artistic filter? Oilpainting?

[Ascension]

I don't have an oilpainting filter...had to mix a bunch of things together (diffuse-anistropic, water color, anistropic again, and accented edges). At any rate I was back in the lab tonight. Not sure if I'll keep it but I'll certainly play around more with this on other things. I'm trying to make it look painted to represent the lands that he has been to and the sketched part represents lands he's just heard of or glimpsed from a sailing trip.

### Latest WIP ###

[mearrin69]

Wow. Repped if possible. Do love the style...please share your filtering technique when done if you don't consider it proprietary.
M

[euio]

That is quite possibly the coolest map I've ever seen.

[Daelin]

To be totally honest, Ascension, now that I can see the entire continent, I'm not digging it that much. I think the terrain looks way too messy, like the mountains and plains and forests are all jumbled together. I can't quite figure where one piece of topography starts and where it ends. I can't totally dig the concept of the look, though, and it does have the potential to look totally awesome, but I think you need to tone down the filters a fair bit, so that the oil painting look is more subtle and the map more "readable". But do keep working at it, it definitely has the potential.
Just my two cents, anyway.

[ravells]

Wow, this is gorgeous! Really looks like a painting with visible brushstrokes and layers of paint. I hope you're going to keep the outline of the surrounding continents as just linework, really adds to the effect.

[Jaxilon]

I like the push into a new look Ascension. Keep going I am excited to see what you end up with.

[Ascension]

Thanks, guys. I'm totally with ya Daelin. I've been searching for a faux painted look (a la Picasso) since before I ever bought Photoshop and I'm finally close. I think I'll try the new techniques on the non-filtered version and see how that comes out because I've totally lost my rivers now. The sketchy continents will stay as is since those places do not need detail for the challenge. The main gist of the new technique is 16 layers of motion-blurred noise-over-clouds (white clouds deleted on half, black deleted on the other half), then hit each layer with the Swirl filter from Eye Candy on very low settings to give a lil twist. For those without Eye Candy you can use the distort-twirl filter at 1 or 2...I think it's twirl, will check later. Then bevel two layers and add drop shadow to simulate texture. I'll do up a mini-tut when done and others can perfect my experiment.