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Welcome back indeed! This looks really good. I did not realize how basically every major city in Iceland is on the coast. It makes sense though. The troll legends are also a neat touch.
Exaggerated Relief Map of Iceland
iceland_draft_final_small-min-min.jpeg
Well whaddya know, I remembered the password to this account!
In all seriousness, its been a couple years since I've posted here. Hell, its been a couple of years since I made a map I'm sorta happy with. I've been working on this for a couple of months now, trying to nail down nail down the exact process behind making exaggerated relief maps, with an artistic flair to it. Something that's halfway accurate, while at the same time being something that you could put up on the wall.
I used qgis for the geodata and elevation data, blender to render it in 3D. Then I took all of that, tossed it into photoshop, and went ham on it.
The png ended up being a whopping 44 MB, and I don't have enough experience with this stuff to know whether that's expected, or I messed up somehow. Hell, just to upload the whole image, I had to run it through a png compresser, then convert it to jprg and run it through the compresser again. I don't even want to imagine what its done to the quality of the final image... ah well, c'est la vie.
This marks the absolute first time I've ever attended digital cartography (and the first time I've used qgis and blender), so I'm very new to all of this. Any and all critique shall be richly rewarded, as I'm planning on taking this further.
Goes without saying, I need to start sharpening my skills on photoshop, too. I have no clue how to draw in it... I'll figure it out, I'm sure xD
I'm attaching a few cropped sections of the map.
iceland_draft_final_crop1-min.png
iceland_draft_final_crop2.png
iceland_draft_final_crop3.png
iceland_draft_final_crop4.png
I tell you what though, it feels good to be back.
Welcome back indeed! This looks really good. I did not realize how basically every major city in Iceland is on the coast. It makes sense though. The troll legends are also a neat touch.
Thank you! What really struck me, was despite the name and latitudinal location, it's actually not as cold as you'd expect, what with the warm gulf stream keeping the coasts ice free.Originally Posted by Arimel
Any critique/advice on what I could improve upon?
Welcome back!
I've always had a soft spot for maps like these - rather realistic reliefs but still a papered and textured look overall, and you pulled it off really well here. I know absolutely nothing of working with elevation data, and very little about working or rendering 3D, so I can't really comment on that side of things. I'm maybe not a 100% sold on the blue lines around the coastlines, I think the shade messes a bit with the rather muted colour of the overall paper... but I'm not sure what might work better. Maybe a slight darker shadow or just a soft dark glow on the coastline in order to make it pop a bit more? Can't say for sure, just my initial thought.
Either way, glad to see you back again, and I hope you keep working on this style!
I agree completely, the blue feels out of place. Perhaps a more muted colour could work better? Maybe just skip the blue entirely, and replace it with a darker shade of the parchment colour?
I'll keep experimenting, and expanding on this style. Thank you for the kind words, and the feedback, it's really helpful.
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