Iskandarion

[Pontchartrain]

Hey guys,

I've been lurking here for a while and playing with the tutorials, and I've finally gotten to the point where I'm ready to put my map out in the open! I made it with photoshop, very loosely using the Saderan tutorial, which was amazingly helpful.

Iskandarion doesn't really have a practical purpose like a story or an RPG or anything, but I still had a lot of fun making the map. It's just populated by humans (no fantasy creatures). Parts of the world are very interconnected by trade routes (I'm thinking like China, India, and the Middle East while Europe was in the middle ages) especially around the Makrioni Archipelago, but other parts are total backwaters.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but I'm not really sure where to go from here or how to make it better. Any criticism or suggestions are very appreciated.

[Ascension]

It looks very nice except for the really big words (in my opinion). You can use smaller sizes and just space the letters out by using the tracking option on the Character tab (have text selected first). I like the soft feel of a painting here, nice job with that.

[tilt]

I'm with Ascension on the words, they are a bit dominating ... otherwise nice first map... the mountains could use some more definition, only Jabal have any shape to them ... have some rep for your first upload

[Pontchartrain]

Thanks, guys. I fixed the continent names. Are these any better?

The mountains were probably the part that I struggled the most with. When I have some time this weekend I think I'm going to try to dive into the tutorial section and maybe try to fix up the mountain ranges!

[tilt]

yes they are better - although a little smaller wouldn't hurt.. and the same goes for oceans ... they don't have to be big to take up space - just use spacing on the letters to make them "stretch" longer

[Ascension]

Here's an example using smaller text with larger spacing. This allows you to put more info into the map without it getting dominated by big letters. If you don't see the Character window just click on "Window" at the top of the screen and scroll down to Character.

[tilt]

yep, what Ascension said

[simpfan1]

I would suggest that if you want to use large text, fool around with the opacity and directions of the text

[Pontchartrain]

Wow, Ascension, thanks so much for the example! It definitely helped!

Okay, so I went into photoshop with the intention of changing the ocean names and maybe tweaking the mountains, and I kinda sorta ended up with a completely refurbished map! Funny how those things happen

I spread the ocean names out more, made them smaller, and played with the opacity a little, with pretty good results, I think. These mountains I did by copy/pasting elevation maps in, and then using a gradient for the colors. I also used jwbjerk's elevation brushes to change some parts up. I like this version of the mountains a lot more than the other ones – they definitely feel more real. The lowlands still look a little flat, but I'm trying to use some textures to liven them up.

[Ascension]

you're welcome. now to just keep plugging away at it.