[WIP] Caeruin XXL

[Quabbe]

Hey there,

after I had completed the labeling of the villages and cities, I have turned to the other stuff. Rivers, mountains, lakes and forests have each got their own color. Also the villages are different in color from the cities, castles and holds. I have removed the 'glow' around the cities, but still think about something like a stroke in a light color (like Schleys maps have it). Anyway, I've duplicated the background layer, used the Gaussian blur by 8% and put a mask on it, comprising the contour of all text-layers (expanded by one pixel and feathered by 2). Now the text is easier to see. I think this will fit quite well.

Well, until now, at least one quarter is done.


Quabbe

[HandsomeRob]

I think I would set the large red labels (Sturmkap, etc.) to multiply, or at least get a bit of the underlying map texture to show through them. Right now they kind of appear "tacked on" and separate from the rest of the map.

Overall, it looks great though.
-Rob

[Quabbe]

Yeah, you are right. I allready had set the text layers to multiply, but thought it might be a bit too dark and went back to the normal mode. Now I've put a pattern-mask onto the text-layer group, duplicated them once and set the mode of the lower layer to soft light and the upper layer to multiply on 50%. Does look better now in my opionion, doesnt it?

The other style with the stroked edges can be seen below. Both doing their job well, but I still prefer the non-stroked style. Any suggestions?


Quabbe

edit: whoops, forgot to add the image

[Felwynn]

Very nice colors! Excellent work.

[LonewandererD]

This map continues to be great, i'd rep but i need to spread some more around first. Bravo!

-D-

[Juggernaut1981]

The "scratchy" look of the buildings/towers/black markers seems to grate against the otherwise muted and blurred style of the trees, etc. Not sure if it is deliberate or not.

[Quabbe]

I know. I drew this buildings a while ago for another map, but I didn't use them. So I came up with the idea to put them into this map. Well, when I put enough of this buildings onto the map, I'll try out some filtermethods, in order to adapt the mainstyle.
Actually nothing is final, everything can change just from one day to another.


Quabbe

[Quabbe]

Okay, something has changed now.

I didn't find a satisfactory filtermethod for the "scratchy" buildings to adapt the mainstyle - so they were taken out.

The streets aren't longer halftransparent, now they are creamwhite.

The font of the large names around the land (Harador, Taranalaar, etc) is now good old Ringbearer.

The color of the whole map was increased intensively, using the adjustment layer Levels. I put some patterns on top with my all-time-favourite-blendmode Softlight and darkened the deeper searegions a bit.

I'm not sure, if the result pleases. I have it all the time before my eyes, I might have lost the "feeling" for the map. The longer I look at the colors, the less I like them. Actually I like these bright colors a lot. This was, however, also with the previous colors at the beginning.

Would anyone say, the former step did more convince?

To my idea with the flags around the map is to say: I have split the map in two versions now. The version below will look like a pretty standard "RPG" Map. No historical mapping elements or a rough used look, just a clean and glossy style. When it is finished, I will continue on the other map (I posted a while ago).

The labeling in the screenshot is not the final result. I removed the maskes and different blendmodes from the duplicated textlayers to finish the labeling first. Which might still need some time. I don't get the motivation to fill the missing mountains, rivers and lakes with names - nothing more like 100 names, but I don't get a start. However, if everything goes right, I'll finish the map until this weekend.

ToDo list:
- new trees (still don't like them, I'm going for a style I used in one of my first maps can be seen here)
- labeling
- compass / scales
- better style for the headline top right
- meridian roses


Quabbe

[Quabbe]

I think I'm too tired to work on this map on. When I look at the map, I feel bored and unmotivated. I do not know why that is. Maybe I've just spent too many hours staring at this map. And my computer is getting slower and slower, even when I only change a textlayer it needs like 30 seconds. Not to speak what happens, when I do change the fontsize of all textlayers. I have to wait hours and hours until the progress is finished. The total annoying.

I'm not going to post the 'final' map in the finished map section. I don't think I will work on this map ever further, but I will use the textlayers for an other map in a satellite style. And that map will become much smaller (6.400 x 6.400 px).

Sorry, that I didn't add the missing text layers, the compass and the symbol references.

Bad, map is too large for this forum... Okay, here it is at 75% size:

Caeruin XXL


Quabbe

[Ascension]

Big maps and maps with a lot of layers really chug a computer. So I always did up my terrain in one file then flattened that and saved a new version for the text to eliminate all the layers. You're probably getting the worst of both things since you have a lot of labels (and therefore layers) plus the big size. However, you have a really sweet map and something to be very proud of and in a style that not too many can pull off well.