The Realm of Trent

[Aval Penworth]

Starting another regional project while I have a little extra time and motivation. A couple of people have requested a walk through so here it is.

This will be a detail of southern region of my Naerth World Map. So far I pasted the section I will be detailing and traced or colour selected the major features, creating a new layer for each group of features. I used Old Guys trick for roughing up the coast.

Fills and textures are from the Vintyri Project site...Thanks Mark.

Screenshot below..(It's PS6, that's why it looks old-school)

[Aval Penworth]

Base land texture was created by selecting the land Noise Filter> Dry Brush Filter > Gausian Blur 2.0

Hills created in a new layer with a Clouds Filter (Green/ White) . Colour select White> Delete white area. Layer effect Bevel/Emboss soft, with contour and texturizer (bare mountatins) Depth 80% Size 18px, Highlight 25% Shadow 75% Then reduce layer opacity to 75%.


As I add other elements I will review the settings on the hills layer to se what looks best.

[Aval Penworth]

I've now started the base of the mountains. I turned on the the layer effects for bevel/emboss and have the texturizer setting on bare mountains.

I may add some more areas of low mountains later but for now I just want to make sure that there are mountain areas consistent with my larger map.

I will add more layers with increasingly steeper bevel setting and paint to gradually build up the mountains. I will also add a noise filter of 3-5% to the mountain layers if they need to look rougher.

[Aval Penworth]

So now I have painted on three layers of mountains. The peaks have taken shape, but I will probably make more modifications as I go. I have scattered some bushland with the pattern stamp around the base of the mountain and turned up the green on the land base. The brush will help with blending the forests around the mountains later. I've also turned up the red in the mountains as the gray was too flat, but put some light peaks to accentuate the hieght.

[Aval Penworth]

After some more tweaks with a fine brush on the mountains I have turned on the forest layer. Using an irregular brush I used the pattern stamp with deciduous forest pattern. I set the forest layer to drop shadow but set the highlight to 10%. I have also added a slight drop shadow to the hills for extra definition. Don't know if I'll keep that or not.

[Aval Penworth]

I've drawn in the main rivers 5px wide for major rivers 2px wide for smaller rivers. All rivers are drawn on a transparent layer with a slight bevel.

I will add more trubutaries later.

In order for the main river to pass through the mountains, I erased a path on each mountain layer with a hard edged eraser.

[Aval Penworth]

The map so far. Some texture tiling is evident which I will clean up later. Next I will make adjustments to the hills layer with a soft round brush or eraser so the terrain is more sympathetic the the flow of the rivers.

[Aval Penworth]

Next I colour selected the lighter areas of the ground, feathered 20px and copied the selection on top of the hills layer. I used a texture and emboss on this layer. Now I have lighter bare hills to contrast with the grassy hills. I added a 3% noise to the hills layers to give texture to the slightly blurred edges.

From here on I will just tinker, but the main 'groundwork' is done.

[Aval Penworth]

Almost done. I have some more lables to do, but I think I am on the home straight. I will clean up the tiling in the textures and blend the rivers after I merge all the layers.

[Aval Penworth]

Okay. I think that this is finished, but please offer any feedback or commentary you see fit.

This is once again part of my campaign world, but far from the civilized realms. All the cities are walled and have very little farmland. The staple Trentish diet consists of variously processed giant earthworm, cave mushrooms, wild berries and fruits. Only the very richest cities have the luxury of importing a variety of foods. The Trentish folk are known as 'worm eaters' in other lands and are considered to be brutish, uncultured and course. This reputation is more based upon ancient prejudices than current Trentish habbits.

Trent is a colony of Cornad, and the people of Trent speak Cornish with an accented drawl. For centuries the Cornish tried to tame the lands so that they could plunder its rich resourses, but the lands have proved too wild and ornery. So the Cornish have withdrawn to their island home, leaving the Trenish folk to fend for themselves from their walled city states. Inhabitants constantly battle for survival against wild beasts and savage demi-human races. 8o years ago a plague swept through the lands wiping out many of the smaller towns and leaving ruins and ghost-towns. Travel is difficult and dangerous. There are very few roads and the folk of the inland cities have becom quite insular and have developed some rather unusual customs.

To this day adventurous souls strike out into the unforgiving lands with the hope of finding lost treasures or abandoned mines with caches of crystal and gemstones. Striking it rich is far from easy however, and only the brave and fortunate few manage to best the wyverns, ogres, hobgoblins and giants to return with booty and tall tales to tell.

Edit: added a darker desaturated version