Skahr - Heartland of the Ionic Empire

[galdre]

These mountains look quite good, and I really like the forest.

[Chashio]

I like that forest very much, the left side, leading-into-forest edge best. The layering technique is similar to something I did on one of my very first commission maps, but mine didn't have colors and I used more trees in each brush. You've given me an idea The shadows on the separate trees are a bit heavy/black... you might try using a greenish blue instead and see what happens.

I also like your choice of background. The mountains, to me, look fantastic in the thumbnail picture (they pull together there) -- but full size... they seem rather disjointed - from the rest of the map style and the stroke styles within the mountains themselves. I do like the additional contrast, that works very well. Perhaps the use of a more grungy brush to paint in the mountains might pull it together at full size. Anyway, nice job so far and keep it coming. Looks like you're on a good track.

[Llannagh]

I like that forest very much, the left side, leading-into-forest edge best. The layering technique is similar to something I did on one of my very first commission maps, but mine didn't have colors and I used more trees in each brush. You've given me an idea The shadows on the separate trees are a bit heavy/black... you might try using a greenish blue instead and see what happens.

I also like your choice of background. The mountains, to me, look fantastic in the thumbnail picture (they pull together there) -- but full size... they seem rather disjointed - from the rest of the map style and the stroke styles within the mountains themselves. I do like the additional contrast, that works very well. Perhaps the use of a more grungy brush to paint in the mountains might pull it together at full size. Anyway, nice job so far and keep it coming. Looks like you're on a good track.

Thanks Chashio. As always, your input is much appreciated! If you're interested in how exactly I did the forest, I'm happy to explain.

I changed the shadow side of the mountains. I like it better now, even though I'm not sure it's what you meant. The way I understood you the smooth brushes I used for the shadows do not match the other stroke styles. I agree. So I just darkened the shadow side with a big, soft brush and otherwise used the same technique as on the light side. Saved a lot of work, too!

Here it is:

Demo.jpg

I didn't do anything about the tree shadows, yet. But I'll try your suggestion. I want to get my mountains straight, first!

[Llannagh]

Did some more work tonight.

Added a few mountains and a forest-y area. Also did some tests on hills...

I changed the shadowcolor of the forest and I like the subtlety of it.

Whole map:
Skahr-Oktober.jpg

And the new area zoomed in:
Zoom.jpg

[Llannagh]

Okay okay okay. I know. I said I'd stick with the above style. But.

I agree that the forest and mountains do not really fit. I couldn't ignore it any longer when I did those hills. So I just wanted to draw something else and thought I'd start a bigger, top-down-view map of a different region. As it happened, I came up with the following while trying to draw top-down mountains:

Berg-100.jpg

The mountains are still too big and the sharpness varies a lot (plus a few other screw-ups), but I think OVERALL that's the one to go for. I think it fits really nicely (really nice?) with the forest, especially after I put the shadows in (which are missing in this pic, I'm just too tired to make another one). Also, I can do hills that way which would transition well to the general landscape.
Let's see what'll happen when I find a way to do rivers and lakes. Maybe I'll change the style again...

On a side note: today I decided to do most of the drawing in 100% zoom. That's because just today I realized that that would be the full scale view for everybody. True story.

I hope this thread is as amusing for you all as it is for me!

Later, space cowboys.

[Gallien]

Oh, the last variant of the mountains has much potential. I like it much more than the previous mountains and I think it will correspond with the background and the forests much better. It seems this is going to be a great map!