The Garnok region of Baldimar

[Ascension]

This really darn cool and almost painted, might wanna make the stroke on the compass hazy as well but I know this is not the final.

[jfrazierjr]

This really darn cool and almost painted, might wanna make the stroke on the compass hazy as well but I know this is not the final.

Yea... I just noticed that while looking at the source.... I have that as a separate image, so will go monkeying with the compass when I get some time so that it matches up with everything else a bit.

[Vandy]

Hi, JR.

I see you've made some really great progress on you map since I last commented. After spending some time viewing your latest version, I must agree with your decision for definition lines. It does add a good, viewable element to your map. I do like the way you've implemented them.

As to your compass, it is a bit plain for my tastes. I would want a compass showing all four points and, perhaps, a bit more elaborate detailing. Again, just my tastes.

Good looking map and I am very much going to continuing watching and reading about its development.

Looking forward to your continued work.

Regards,

Gary

[jfrazierjr]

Hi, JR.

I see you've made some really great progress on you map since I last commented. After spending some time viewing your latest version, I must agree with your decision for definition lines. It does add a good, viewable element to your map. I do like the way you've implemented them.

As to your compass, it is a bit plain for my tastes. I would want a compass showing all four points and, perhaps, a bit more elaborate detailing. Again, just my tastes.

Good looking map and I am very much going to continuing watching and reading about its development.

Looking forward to your continued work.

Regards,

Gary

Thanks Vandy! One of the reasons the compass is simple is because it's supposed to be. I may ended up putting a bit more distressing into the banner part, but after starting with just a forest texture for a test, I ended up deciding to use this map for a campaign I think I will be starting and the map will be a player hand out, so I want it to look somewhat like a Dwarven cartographer might make. I can't really see a Dwarf using some flowery compass rose, which is why I went for the spear as it is both informative (showing North) and fairly simple in design and fits somewhat with the Dwarven militant theme. Also, it was premade from Fractal Mapper, so I will end up making some small modifications to the image to get to the final result, but in a nutshell, it's fairly close to the final form. Hmmmm now that I think about it a bit more... I might try to find a nice Hammer model I can redo, perhaps with a smallish spike on top that might fit more with the Dwarven culture. Will have to see what I can find.....

[jfrazierjr]

Ok.. Tiny update..... I lightened the tree trunks to match the other "outlines" and added a coniferous forest up north around the snowy mountains and beyond. I have not had time to revisit the compass as of yet.... but I think as I said earlier, I will redo this using the same type of banner over top of a hammer, perhaps with some type of embellishment to the hammer itself (Bloodhammer or perhaps Sunhammer to represent the Dwarf clan). I will have to play around a bit in Inkscape if I don't google to find something example like I want without tons of searching.

[Steel General]

I think the conifers look great - but shouldn't they have a bit of a shadow as well? Or maybe you just haven't got to that yet.

This is really turning out to be very good.

[Vandy]

Hi, jfrazierjr.

Ah. I much better understand your use of your compass choice now. In the context of what you attempting to create, it makes much sense now.

I like the addition of your conifers in the northeast corner of the map. They add a nice "change of pace" to the map. I would agree with the Steel General on his shadows comment.

I'm looking forward to the continued evolution of this great map. Thanks for sharing your progress with us.

I'm starting to realize that -- for lack of a better term to use -- map-making other than for SimCity 4 is a whole new world. When making a SimCity 4 map, your artistic choices are pretty much limited to where you want to put the mountains, coastlines, plains, rivers, lakes, etc. Certainly, it is the same with the map-making I've seen here with the exception that your choices are so very broad as to HOW you place your terrain features as well as WHAT you use to display them.

This is exciting "stuff" and I'm really looking forward to a much broad base from which to explore.

Great work, jfrazierjr. Really great.

Regards,

Gary

[jfrazierjr]

I think the conifers look great - but shouldn't they have a bit of a shadow as well? Or maybe you just haven't got to that yet.

This is really turning out to be very good.

Hi, jfrazierjr.

Ah. I much better understand your use of your compass choice now. In the context of what you attempting to create, it makes much sense now.

I like the addition of your conifers in the northeast corner of the map. They add a nice "change of pace" to the map. I would agree with the Steel General on his shadows comment.

I'm looking forward to the continued evolution of this great map. Thanks for sharing your progress with us.

I'm starting to realize that -- for lack of a better term to use -- map-making other than for SimCity 4 is a whole new world. When making a SimCity 4 map, your artistic choices are pretty much limited to where you want to put the mountains, coastlines, plains, rivers, lakes, etc. Certainly, it is the same with the map-making I've seen here with the exception that your choices are so very broad as to HOW you place your terrain features as well as WHAT you use to display them.

This is exciting "stuff" and I'm really looking forward to a much broad base from which to explore.

Great work, jfrazierjr. Really great.

Regards,

Gary

Thanks to both of you!

Yea... the shadows, I just did not have time to get that done last night as I had hoped to come back to the conifers. I plan on removing the shadow under the other trees and redoing them anyway. They were fine before when there was nothing else on the map, but given the scale I will be using this map at, I plan on reducing those shadows quite a bit in size and will add the ones for the conifers at the same time. I tried turning off the shadow layer last night and I don't think I can get away without a bit of shadow, so I kind of have a direction to go at this point, I just need to have some time. I also plan to increase the size of the snow plain to cover most of the top of the map under the conifer forest. I guess it's a good thing I have at least until March to get this done (that's when my turn to DM will come up at the earliest), so I will more than likely take a short break from this map and go to a brush/png/tutorial binge on how I make those mountains as I have had enough interest in them to warrant spending the time(I would normally not do png's, but I might as well spend an extra 5 minutes per brush to help the symbol mapper users out so that CC and Fractal Mapper users can get some love out of this whole process too.)

Of course, I still need to spend some time fleshing out my backstory, so I may "complete" the map and then come back and make some changes to it as my story develops. I don't know that this will matter too much as there will be two copies of the map over a time period change of hundreds of years(this is the "old" map) with some interviening cateclysm in the middle of the time span. I also need a name for my region, which I am still having trouble with as nothing seems to be inspiring me at the moment. Also, does anyone know of a good png of a two headed warhammer? I found this at Dundjinni which I will use if I can find nothing else, but I would rather have something with two heads "AND" ornate (ie, perhaps a few ruins carved into it and shapped a bit less like a big square of metal). Google just brougt up tons and tons of Warhammer 40K and RPG stuff or Battletech or simplistic warhammers that were actual pictures of historical weapons. I tried to make something in Inkscape last night... but I could not get it to do what I wanted(perhaps I need to devote some time to learning exactly how that damn thing works!)

[jfrazierjr]

Oh... and to everyone who has commented on this map(and special thanks to Torstan), THANK YOU. I have ADD, so it's all the great comments such as these that help me stay motivated to keep at this until completion and not get side tracked.

[Steel General]

Here's a couple of others that I founf there...maybe these will work for you.

I think the bigger one is the better and doesn't have that funky glow around it.