[WIP] Crescent World

[urxed]

This is general thread for my work - I'm building smaller maps from a huge piece of world land mass, and this is my first part.
Not only my first part of this world, but also my first map ever made in Photoshop.

It's supposed to be used when I GM my future campaign. I'm not looking for realism or anything, I would like it to look old and worn.
My world is harsh place, almost wastelandish with few woods and trees. (Maybe I'll try to create some deep and dark jungles when I come to the southern parts of my world).

So far, this is what I've made:
TESTNY.jpg

/Kind regards URXED

- - -

Previous steps in the progress:
första.jpg
Tryout.jpg
test 3.jpg

Here's elements and other stuff that I've made and that I use, I like sharing so just grab whatever you want or need:

- Rhumb / Nautical lines: http://www.mediafire.com/?g313ph83ab642pq
This is a RAR file, uncompressed it's about 16 meg, it's made from a 10k x 10k pixel image with 1 pixel sized lines.

- The mountains that I've made and use in this map: http://www.mediafire.com/i/?9pdhk5cy1lia7ya
These are hand drawn with a 0,3 mm document liner, I work cheap. Use them as you wish, get inspired or get to some brushmaking.

[Gidde]

Below the editing window of the post, there's an Additional Options section. Click the Manage Attachments button, upload your file, and voila

As far as the map goes, your landforms look pretty good, but your rivers are splitting like crazy. Give How to Get Your Rivers in the Right Place a read, it's a really handy reference.

[urxed]

Thank you for both of the tips.

I'll look into the river thing as soon as I've got time. It's really bugging me. As I'm new to doing this kind of work in PS I have no good way of managing the rivers, I just used the eraser for some quick work. Any advice when it comes to this?

Oh, maybe I should also point out that at the moment I'm working with 4961 x 3508 pixels in 300 dpi.

[Gidde]

I'm not a PS pro so I'm not sure how to taper them, but I think it might be easier if you draw the rivers on a separate layer, rather than erasing them out of your main land shape layer. It's also non-destructive to do them that way, so you have more room to change them later without messing up your whole map. Ascension, Pasis and Tear have some great beginning tutorials in Photoshop (and there are a ton more that are awesome); check those out for some step-by-step action.

[Joshua]

I second the use of layers. They are so handy, and you're able to use different effects for each layer. So if you want your rivers to have a softer bank, in addition to any brush selection, you can add a narrow river-colored glow to the layer and have it only apply to your rivers (so long as they're the only thing on that layer). Just as an example.

[Hyrrow]

I like how on the top right your water falls on the mountains, forms rivers, goes from lake to lake to flow down a river to the ocean. I don't know how realistic this is, but it looks great!

[urxed]

I like how on the top right your water falls on the mountains, forms rivers, goes from lake to lake to flow down a river to the ocean. I don't know how realistic this is, but it looks great!

I could be "realistic" considering humans in the area may have built a huge canal. If it's natural is another question though.

[urxed]

I have been playing around with some simple methods of making my map look old, worn and giving it the kind of style I wish for it to have in the end.
I like the effects, and now I know in what direction I'll be heading.
Also note that the rivers are gone and I'll remake them when I've read some of the posted tuts and when I've learned more.
Still got to learn how to make nice looking nautical lines.

A simple test:
Tryout.jpg

And here's an explanation of the world name, and also the location of the main map on the world:
crescent world expl.jpg

[Gidde]

The style looks good so far! For those rhumb (nautical) lines there was a really good discussion about that a couple years back; this thread has the discussion and a lot of examples, links, and uploaded files of the lines themselves.

[urxed]

Gidde: Thanks alot!

I'm looking alot at old maps of scandinavia http://www.why.is/myndir/olaus_skandinavia_stor.jpg this one is so great!

And I've made a list of some "to do's":
- Draw and scan seamonsters
- Make country borders in a simplistic manner
- Roads
- Rivers
- Names and draw some coat of arms for each main city
- Make some nice borders for the map as such
- Find some really nice background paper

This is really growing on me, I'm having so much fun thinking about it, doing it and figuring out how do to stuff. I really appreciate your help! Thanks alot.