WIP - Four Finger Delta Region

[Iapetus]

This is a very rough draft of what I'm calling (for the moment) the Four Finger Delta Region. I'm working on a 4e campaign right now but it's in its infant stages - so early that I still don't have half my city names yet. I decided to leave off all the names for now and save that for a later draft.

The brown blob in the lower right-hand corner is supposed to be mountains. I have seen tutorials on mountains here but haven't gotten to trying them yet. I'm also not sure if they'd mesh with this maps style, but I will get around to it once I have more time to work on the map again. I am not happy with them at all right now.

This is also my first piece in GIMP; I wanted to see how the program ran. This probably took me a bit longer as a result.

Things I know I need to work on:
- Bridges
- Mountains
- Clean up roads
- Add compass and scale
- Possible different symbols for Cities and towns
- Adding in notable temples and holy sites
- Labeling everything

Comments and criticisms appreciated. Thank you!

[Cubanfrog]

It's otherwise cool, but I think you should make those rivers more thin, they look really enormous right now.

[Iapetus]

Ok, so I looked through a few tutorials and spent some time playing with the textures. The result is... quite different. Still very much WIP but I was proud of my progress. The delta has vanished (for now), until I can figure out how to do it a bit better. Or, since I'm still in planning mode for my campaign, I might just nix the delta idea altogether.

I figured out how to make my rivers smaller and still preserve the general shape I wanted completely by accident. It does look a lot better than the rivers I had before.

This version was done in PSPX. Right now I'm playing with mountains in PSP, and trying to find some of the photoshop equivalents (or simply a better way to do it with this program).

Comments, crit, etc. Thank you very much!

[tilt]

very nice - you've come a long way from the first posting.
... ok - critisism
The textures are a bit heavy, try lightening them so they don't dominate...
and the road are a bit wide too
oh and have some rep for uploading your first map

[Iapetus]

Thanks for the crit and rep! I am planning on playing with the layers and textures a bit more, as I wasn't 100% happy with them when I posted.

I guess my biggest issue was the roads? I did feel they were a bit big, but I was torn between making them easily visible and making them smaller like they actually would be to scale. I'll play around with it a bit more.

[tilt]

In my Mountain Realms I have choosen a rather thin line for the roads, however, its is definitly not to scale as the roads wouldn't be visible then.

[Iapetus]

I've done a lot of experimenting since my last post, especially with playing with tutorials that others have put up. My biggest hurdle is still the mountains - I've tried several tutorials and the mountains look very nice, but they don't feel "right" for this map. Maybe if I were doing more of an atlas-style it'd fit, but it's evolving to be a little bit different. So, I experimented a bit with the mountain, and it certainly looking a lot better than it was.

I should also put in a footnote here saying that it is not supposed to show the whole mountain range - only a small portion. This is another reason the tutorials didn't feel "right" for this particular map.

Plenty of other changes going on here and I do think it's looking a lot better.

Comments, crit, etc. The next version will have names for all of these places.

[tilt]

much better textures now - and you're right, the mountains look very flat they need a lot of shading to build up definition. The way you are going, maybe pasis mountains would fit your style - he made a wonderful tutorial to his style

[The-Somberlain]

Well, it seems ok, but if this is going to be a delta region, I think it should be more "wet". Of course, I don't know the scale, but I think the first map was more to the point. Maybe some more minor rivers intertwining or some small lake complex. Again, it all depends on the scale we are seeing here. I am just suggesting. Also, this more "wet" environment could prove a lot more adventurous with dangerous lizard-folk, underwater complexes and stuff...Damn, now I want to make a map like that!