Belgariad/Mallorean WIP

[Gidde]

Hey folks ... I hadn't intended to post this until I could put it in the finished section, but I find that I've become slightly addicted to the feedback on here. This map is probably my last book-map-as-gift; it's for my aunt who requested a Belgariad/Mallorean map for her wall, "like your mom's Middle Earth map" -- and since my aunt has been supplying me with books my whole life, I figured I owed her

So this is ALMOST done ... As I was tweaking the labels I found a couple cities for which I had forgotten the label, plus the label for Dariya is annoyingly overlapping the Ancient Mallorea tag. And I've got to make a compass/cartouche for it.

All I'm really looking for is impressions, nothing's really striking me as a problem area. It's more along the lines of "am I missing something that the Guild folks would catch?" I'm also slightly nervous about the mountains, as they're a new style for me.

// Edit: Oh, and I realize the top edge looks funky -- I'll be cropping that off.

[Steel General]

Honestly I like everything but the mountains, they look overly fuzzy/blurred to me.

The one thing I think is missing is a representation of the Fens - maybe even add a marker for the Witch's hut (can't remember her name).

[Gidde]

Ah ... Vordai, was it? Good point there. Not sure what I can do about the blurriness, but I'll start experimenting. Thanks!

[Gidde]

Does this help at all? I overlaid the mountains with a not-quite-opaque layer containing the original mountains before I oilified them. I can't quite revert all the way or I'll lose them matching with the rest of the map, plus I'll get back the embossing artifacts I got rid of by doing the oilification in the first place.

//Edit: Uploading a version that's shrunk to closer to what will be seen when printed at almost lossless compression (eddings3.jpg), as opposed to the first one which is at 1/1 pixel but at an extremely lossy compression (eddings2.jpg).

[Ascension]

The problem that I have is that the mtns are all the same height in appearance and the escarpment doesn't seem "cliffy". The challenge map that I did last year didn't exactly nail the escarpment either. The forests are kind of blobby - they start and stop quite abruptly with a solid edge. I'd add some solo trees around the edges or somehow "dither" the edges with chunks of trees. On the whole it seems rather flat except for the trees and mtns sticking up and dominating everything but it's your baby and this style seems to call for that kind of thing, shrug.

[Gidde]

Good call on the forests, I'll do that. As far as the mountain height issue, I have the same issue, I just have zero ideas on how to fix it. I tried to add some manual shading, but that didn't really do much. The inherent problem is that they're so darned *thick*. So no matter how much variation I put into the heightmap, it still ends up looking like a plateau with variation. As far as the flatness of the rest goes, yeah, it's the style -- a style I tried hard to talk her out of, but hey, it's her wall.

[TheSilentOne]

This is a really nice style of mapping.
Two things: First, the Temba Marshes, I can't really see a marsh there, and second, it might be a good idea do build some bridges where roads cros rivers.
There is also something I don't quite like about the roads, but I can't say what it is...

[Gidde]

Thanks, TheSilentOne! That's vote #2 for needing something more to designate marshes. I'll definitely do some work on them. I'd left the bridges out since some of the rivers are improbably wide in the representation and it looked funny; I'll do some more experimenting to see if I can't come up with something that looks better.

[TheSilentOne]

I figured it out what I don't like about the roads: for example, on Ancient Mallorea, the terrain is a bit dull, meaning that you only have the roads and some rivers, but nothing in between. I know it is close to the sea, so maybe you don't want tress and/or mountains there, but it looks a bit too empty.
Again, I really love this style of mapping, the forest style is great amd the "glassy" look of the water on the coasts and near the islands is just wicked, very realistic.

[Gidde]

Ahh ... unfortunately that's a consequence of redoing an existing map in a new style. I tried not to take any liberties with Mr. Eddings's world, adding stuff in if it wasn't already on one of the maps from the books. That said, I just caught some discrepancies in Ancient Mallorea, and looking at the roads has me thinking they really ought to be tweaked a bit. Thanks for the comments on the sea, that's probably my favorite part of the whole map The forest style is straight from the tutorial in my sig, with a slight glass filter run and then faded in PS afterward.

Thanks for the suggestions so far everyone; I'm glad I posted it after all. Looks like I have some serious reworking to do