Kingdom of Bataar - Local Map

[ascanius]

Thanks for the input Humabout. Good point with the blurring, I used a pen-tool instead of a brush tool, which makes very harsh edges. So I changed that.

This is my latest progress:

Bataar-A3-Legend.jpg

This is roughly what I'm going for when the map itself is finished. I'm going to add some nice borders (which will be a first for me) and some descriptions and a legend. The legend right now is just for you guys so you have an idea what's what.

Known issues:

- icons and small roads in darker areas are very hard to make out
- inner borders may seem confusing/too much
- it might not make much sense to put major villages in heavily forested areas...

I added a VERY slight drop shadow to the icons and an outer glow to make them more distinct. At the moment I think it works alright, though I have been staring at it for some hours now and may have become blind. So, if you don't like it, don't fret, it's not necessarily final.

Man, it feels good to be working on this again!

This looks very nice! God job. I love your forests, I've been trying to find some way to add forests to my own map without making it cluttered and/or ruining the aesthetics.
1, I didn't have a problem with the roads in the darker areas, they don't pop out like some of the others but they are still visible, I like the way they are too, without the drop shadow and glow, too.
2. I don't think the boarders are a problem, just my opinion.
3. This I don't know, I think it would depend on the size of the village, and even then a possible solution is to simply remove some forest around the village.

I don't like the drop shadow or the glow, it's the first thing that grabs the eye and takes away from all the other work you did. One idea, that I want to try for my map now that I thought of it, is to paint in the boarders and icons with an unsaturated warm color. Maybe apply a very weak noise map to the icons and roads to give them a very slight imperfection. The only other thing I can think of is I think the rivers should be less saturated and darker. With the ocean same thing but I think having the ocean get darker the further from the coast.

I have to ask how did you do the forests?

Out of rep but when I get some more you'll know.