City of Lutetia - An Attempt at Using Pyrandon's City Tutorial

[Felonius]

So here's my first post of a work-in-progress on this site (go easy on me, I'm a n00b! =) ).

This is supposed to be a large, regional fantasy city.

The river and river islands are loosely based on downtown Paris.

My own thoughts:

What I like:

1. I like the general "feel" for the streets.

Need suggestions:

1. The city wall needs help.
2. The trees just aren't working for me.
3. The river coloring / stream effects.

Background, streets, and buildings originally done in CD3.

All processing effects done in Photoshop CS4.

[Marken4]

Well.. I have to start with commenting the square form of the city. Well, I don't like it to be, sorry. But other than that I think it looks great!

The Wall
It's very thick. And I don't see any gates? Maybe some towers spread among it will make it look more like a defence than a pile of rock.

The River
I would add some depth to it, I like the colours that you have used, but I don't look too realistic around the "coastlines". Maybe putting a drop shadow on the land? Or the opposite..

The Trees
Maybe if you picked a scattering brush around the edges it would look more like trees? And putting some single ones in the city, around the river and along the edges of the map.

[Aval Penworth]

If you made the buildings in CD3 why didn't you keep the CD3 roof detail? Was it just to get the shapes so you could follow the tute?

I'd have thought the City Designer roof tops would look much nicer that the PS bevel.

The wall could use some towers and gate houses, as mentioned. Perhaps the water is a little too bright and saturated compared to the rest of the map.

Cheers. Thanks for sharing.

[Felonius]

Thanks for the advice--

I didn't think to do use the building shading, mostly because I want to make it easier to change the building color "whole sale" in photoshop later anyway, but in retrospect that was probably a mistake.

I do need to fix the river....Not quite sure how. Maybe add a filter layer and simply tone down some of the white / contrast?

I also think I need to move the wall in. Having visited a couple of actual "walled" European cities, the walled area / enclosure usually focuses on a small district, usually centered on the center of worship and government (read: royal) dwellings, while the rest is "open" city area. This is supposed to represent an area approximately 2 miles across, and I don't know that anyone would build a city wall that large to enclose that much city. Plus as mentioned, the "squareness" of it feels unnatural. The street flow seems to work pretty well, but "boxing" it into the walls kind of kills that organic feel a bit. So maybe do a more arc enclosure closer to the center of the city would fix that problem too.

Oh, and the trees----THANK YOU THANK YOU, I was wondering how to actually make it so the tree edge doesn't just "fall off" into space, and make it look like they were floating.

Thanks for the tips. I can't believe how blasted addicting this hobby is. =)

Nothing another 6 hours can't fix, right? LOL