Cruentius

[RazielKilsenhoek]

Hey guys!

I would like to present my second map to you, after many weeks of on-and-off work on it. With the amount of content I added to this, only to completely dispose of it later, I could probably have made 3 more. But here it is, the final product. It is my first project of this size, which left me wondering a lot about what I should or should not add to it.

I started this map with the thought that I would like to make a new world for text-based roleplay, something I was very active in several years ago. I was hoping that putting time and effort into crafting an image of a fictional world, it would respark my interest in the roleplaying hobby. We'll see if that was accomplished. After trying various styles, from black and white, hand drawn, to realistic satellite style maps, I decided to just stick close to what I had done in my previous map (the first one I ever posted on this website). Unlike the previous map however, this map comes with a short WIP forum thread, where several people helped me in making decisions regarding style and content. Without further delay, here is the final product:

2ZfsSNp.jpg

Before anything, I would like to say that imgur adds some artifacts to the image. I know I probably overdid it a bit with the resolution (never again), but I will happily edit this post if there is a better way of uploading this image without quality loss, or lowering the file size without quality loss (PNG file is currently 50mb). Overall this was a lot of fun to work on. I got to try out several new techniques and learned new methods of achieving a certain look. Not going for any Cartographers Choice here, just wanted to share the final thing with you guys. I am pretty happy with how it turned out!

In the interest of openness and transparancy, the following spoiler hides a full list of every source that contributed anything to this map.

 

I downloaded quite a few brush packs for this project, and while I am not 100% sure which ones I did and did not use, I will source them all.

Map Brushes by Morraey on deviantART For chasms.
Sketchy Cartography Brushes by StarRaven on deviantART For the majority of the mountains, and the initial trees. The trees were later replaced by TreeThing.
Map Brushes by Morraey on deviantART For some of the swamp/grassfield brushes. They were not used much but they added some small detail which worked well with what I had in mind.
http://www.cartographersguild.com/ma...-elements.html For the map icons I ended up going with. They are very nice, so many thanks to Ramah!

Several sources were also used for the border of the map itself. I found a ton of nice artwork, but was not sure if they were free for use or not, so I ended up playing it safe on a lot of things. Here are some sources that were free for use, as far as I could tell, and which were used in the map border.

All square pattern brush_Download free vector,3d model,Icon--youtoart.com For the corners of the map border.
Optimus Princeps Font | dafont.com For the font of the Cruentius name.
Chapbook: 17th century type, in all its grungey glory For the font of all the other text in this map. I really liked this one because it looks like it could have been used in a real map, centuries ago. There were several other ones, but they cost a good buck to use and I have not reached that stage in this hobby yet.
Online Personal Signature Maker - MyLiveSignature - Free Personal Signature Generator, Email Signatures, Outlook Signature, Blog Signature and Personal font was used for the signature in the bottom right of the map. I had tried several times to make one myself, but like with the map icons, I seem to simply lack any kind of skill with handwritten/hand drawn things.
Easy Wax Seal in Illustrator and Photoshop | Abduzeedo Design Inspiration Has a tutorial I used for the wax seal in the bottom right of the map. I do not have Illustrator so it required some toying around with, but I am happy with the end result.
http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...ders-gimp.html Had a tutorial used to create the checkered lines along the outside of the map, and gave me several other tips on the general design of the map border. Very useful, thanks arsheesh!
European lace pattern 01 vector Vector pattern - Free vector for free download Contains a little swirly vector that I used in some places under text, just so finish it off. While I am able to make this myself, the technology I have is not pressure sensitive and would not have gotten the effect I wanted. Perhaps a future investment will change this.
ryansumo's sketchbook - Page 2 If you search for Rusty Axe on this page, you will see a piece of art I used for the map border. I contacted the artist, Ryan Sumo, and asked him if I could use it. He was kind enough to let me do so in this email. http://i.imgur.com/gbNGkFc.png

Next are sources for random things in the map, some very small, some very big.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/ma...treething.html Was of course used for the trees. I had originally used a brush for all the trees, then filled them in on a seperate layer like I did with the mountains. This was much easier, and the amount of customisation was a lot of fun to mess around with.
Compass Rose Photoshop Brushes by sdwhaven on deviantART This was used for the compass rose in the top left of the map. It is crazy how many of these are out there, but these worked well for what I had in mind.
Anke Calligraphic FG Font · 1001 Fonts For the font used for city/country/sea/etc names.
Sailboat 3 Vector clip art - Free vector for free download Sea icon
Bilander Ship clip art Vector clip art - Free vector for free download Sea icon

Several sources for the heraldry shields as well. Not all of them will have a description, as some have stuff in them that I ended up not using, and because there are rather a lot of them. It should be easy to spot what I used on which page, though.

Heraldic Shields This is where I got the shield itself from. The fact that they were vectors made it that much easier to use.
sun images art - www. - ClipArt Best - ClipArt Best
63 Heraldic Shapes | Custom Shapes | PSHERO
Wave vector graphic 1 Vector misc - Free vector for free download
Wheat pattern 04 vector Vector pattern - Free vector for free download
Dieren schetsen silhouet Cartoon bas vissen gratis automatische springen visserij Fisch clip arts, illustraties - ClipartLogo.com
Pirates 34 PSv7 Brushes by dejahofmars on deviantART

That is all the links, as far as I know. I hope I have not missed any, as I would like for this to be as transparant as possible for the sake of giving credit where it is due.