September/October Entry: City of Iscarleau

[Avengeil]

Today's update...
First of all, thanks god that somebody developed a plug-in with layer effects for gimp, it saved me from a lot of work.
Secondly I caught a cold so I'll be staying home tomorrow which means that I will have a lot of time for mapping and then the weekend's on it's way so I think that I will be able to finish this map in time.
And thirdly I'm wondering for how long I will be able to postpone filling up the empty areas.
C&C welcome and appreciated.

### LATEST WIP ###
The City of Iscarlaue phase 16.jpg

[Avengeil]

Minor update...

### LATEST WIP ###

The City of Iscarlaue phase 18.jpg

[Avengeil]

Next update...
I've finally reached a point where the main bulk of the map is done and now I can start filling in the little detail that I wanted to for so long, like a lighthouse, maybe a quarry e.t.c.
But I have reached a dilemma about my farmlands, the first time I did it the center seemed a bit weird to me while the farm houses looked quite nice but the second time I went for it the center looked normal but the farm houses had lost some of their magic.What's your opinion?
Thanks in advance
The City of Iscarlaue phase 20.jpg The City of Iscarlaue phase 21.jpg

[geamon]

I think It's hard to bring a lot of small detail to the map you working on because the scale to resolution ratio you are working with. Are those walls around all the fields? Also is it only one field per farmhouse? Maybe the families have more then one crop. My view on farming is a little different but when it's a very flat topography for the area such as plains, the farms are more in a square form. On the other hand, when its hilly people shape their farms to the low lands of the hills and mountains. Therefore, the shapes seems very odd if this is a fairly flat area. I can be wrong in that assessment. All the houses aren't very defined from what I can see, aside from looking "buttonized". I'm thinking you may wanna work on ensuring the edges and peaks of the houses are evident and that should make them look better. I dunno I can be wrong, just my two cents.

[Avengeil]

Thank you for your two cents geamon.
First of all the buttonization (lol) of the houses is a by-product of an outer bevel filter with not much editing after it so I will try to define those houses peaks.
About the farmlands I actually hadn't thought much about the placing of them.The shape of the right-bottom corner farmlands won't change but I will most possibly make a hill to go with them.And families should have more than one crop
Of course all of these corrections shall happen depending on the time that I have available.

[Katto]

Try to place the fields around the farmhouse and use a rough rectangular shape. You should also add some storage buildings next to the farmhouses and don't forget to connect them to the roads Nice work so far!

[Avengeil]

Thanks Katto,
with yours and geamon's advice I think I might have solved the problem that I had with field placing.

and don't forget to connect them to the roads

That was one of the little details but I'm not quite sure that I would have remembered it

[Avengeil]

Well I am calling this project finished because at the moment I do not have enough time (or nerve) to do any more work on it.
There are a few things that I don't like about it currently and a lot more things that I would do differently if I ever redid this map.
All in all I really enjoyed this entry.
Thanks to everyone who helped out in the wip for enduring my amateurness especially jtougas, aval and geamon.

And now to give proper recognition to all my sources:
First of all the amazing tutorial by Ravells "Creation and Depiction of Fantasy Cities - Parts I & II",
a mostly idea giving tutorail by Pyradon "A medieval town map tutorial in Photoshop",
a minor but valuable tutorial by kittrellbj "City Walls in Photoshop"
and finally "cgtextures" a valuable source of textures.

Cheers,

### LATEST WIP ###
The City of Iscarlaue final.jpg

[geamon]

Yayers you got a submittable version done!!

[jtougas]

Looks great ! I love the fields !!