Wyrtenheim

[Sapiento]

In addition to my compliments for the beautiful map, I wish to add a remark...
To my understanding the little circles are the smallest villages, right? If that's so, I think that in a good portion of the landmass they are almost too evenly spaced. In some areas they seems like a sort of grid. Their emplacement could be well the result of some (to me) unkown feature/hystorical reason, but well... I feel a bit cunfused by the regular looking of it.

Regards

Thank you. I placed the villages by random, but let's say the Old Empire used some rules for its farming villages and garrison placements.

Besides that, I guess I'm finished. Ideas and comments?

[Jaxilon]

Wow, that is just awesome Sap. It looks really authentic and I love the color tones. All the little illustrations are great too.

edit: Bah, I need to spread more rep

[Freodin]

Just a few points that I would like to see changed.

Two minor points with the colouration:
First, the choice of colours for the coat of arms seems a little unheraldic. I think you should chose between the blue or the red, but not both.
Second, strengthen the red tint for the towns where they overlap the yellow borders... the resulting orange colour you have now isn't too pretty.

But my major objection (and a lot of work if you would be going to change it): you have a lot of overlaps of settlement names with map elements. At many points it would be just a case of moving the label a few pixels... at some points you won't have enough space. Still, here you should go either for the method you used with the hills - mask out the underlying river - or use the method used in the original maps - divide the label.
It's similar with the cartouche. As it is now, it looks like it is simply placed over the map (most likely because it is). I guess it would look more authentic if you masked out an area around it.

Last (and rather minor) point of objection: if this is a map of the Margraviate of Wyrtenheim, then all of the country should be on it. Don't let it disappear beyond the mountains, just add another border there.


Yet all in all the map is fantastic. The choice of colours is superb. The texture of the sea is stunning... it is almost unrecognizable that this is a pattern! How did you do this?
And please, please, pretty please: can you give a detailed description of how you did the fine lines for the coast and river texture? This is exactly how I would like to do it... and I can't get it right!

P.S. How much is a common imperial mile with you?

[Sapiento]

Just a few points that I would like to see changed.

Two minor points with the colouration:
First, the choice of colours for the coat of arms seems a little unheraldic. I think you should chose between the blue or the red, but not both.
Second, strengthen the red tint for the towns where they overlap the yellow borders... the resulting orange colour you have now isn't too pretty.

But my major objection (and a lot of work if you would be going to change it): you have a lot of overlaps of settlement names with map elements. At many points it would be just a case of moving the label a few pixels... at some points you won't have enough space. Still, here you should go either for the method you used with the hills - mask out the underlying river - or use the method used in the original maps - divide the label.
It's similar with the cartouche. As it is now, it looks like it is simply placed over the map (most likely because it is). I guess it would look more authentic if you masked out an area around it.

Last (and rather minor) point of objection: if this is a map of the Margraviate of Wyrtenheim, then all of the country should be on it. Don't let it disappear beyond the mountains, just add another border there.


Yet all in all the map is fantastic. The choice of colours is superb. The texture of the sea is stunning... it is almost unrecognizable that this is a pattern! How did you do this?
And please, please, pretty please: can you give a detailed description of how you did the fine lines for the coast and river texture? This is exactly how I would like to do it... and I can't get it right!

P.S. How much is a common imperial mile with you?

Good points. I know the labels have to be replaced or changed - I saw it when I looked at the map after a few hours break.

Coast: I use a pattern with horizontal lines and a mask. (Now it gets complicated, because I use the German version of PS and don't know the English commands). Then I rasterize? the layer and add a distort filter, ripple. That's all.
For the sea pattern I just place dots on a new file and use the offset filter to get a halfway decent distribution.

And an Imperial mile is a kilometer.

[Sapiento]

Ok, improved version.
I changed the labels and added a border in the west, borders don't overlap with the city icons now (maybe I add some overlap here and there for some incorrections).
However I kept the coat-of-arms colouring as well as the pattern around the cartouche - I like the unusual colours and if I remind the reference maps of Blaeu correctly, then there was no empty space around the cartouches (for me it looks also better).

[cereth]

The only thing I'm not a big fan of are the dots in the large bodies of water. It was also pretty easy for me to spot a repeating pattern in the dots. other than that small gripe, the map looks wonderful.

[Diamond]

The awesomeness! It burns!

You just keep getting better every time, Sap. I really like this one, and actually even though the pattern in the sea is discernible, I kind of like it better because of that.

Aaaand... I can't rep you yet.

[Sapiento]

Thank you guys.
I could try to make the original pattern larger to reduce the pattern look, but I think it's not a great problem.
Does anyone know if the old mappers used stencils for this sort of map elements?