WIP: The Golden Age

[Arkm]

Hey All,

This is my first draft using several tutorials to achieve an effect similar to the Birthright Maps and Lorrel done by Pyrandon.

This is also my first post (I think?); however, I am a Long time maphead and have been hanging around this place since it first opened. Oogling all the great work. Wishing I had the chops.

This is a mock up to see if I could achieve the desired effect. I'll have to replace the parchment background eventually. It is a wallpaper from Tor but it works to answer the "can I do this style map?" question. There is still a good amount of window dressing needed (locations, scale, topography) but this style of map is fairly minimalist.

Eagle eyes may notice some familiar land forms. I design settings with a real location in mind for my research. Once I get to this phase I alter the topography a hair to make it less obvious where the source comes from.

Anyone have any handy tutorials on designing trees and mountains? Anyone have suggestions?

[PS - A few of you may recognize my more commonly used internet ID - Eosin or Eosin the Red.]

[The-Somberlain]

Hey there. It's looking very nice for starters.

Check the Tutorials/How-tosection. There are a lot of stuff you will find useful...

[Sigurd]

Good burn in and horizontal paper texture. It has a nice natural feel to it. I like the frame. The lighting affect clearly shows the map's focus in the center of the page.

Sigurd

[Midgardsormr]

For some reason, I immediately thought of Helium3's map of Heva. The colors are radically different, but I'm thinking the line style might be a good fit.

[Idabrius]

Very classy look. I would reconsider the woodcut style on the oceans, though. Doesn't seem (at least to me) to be jiving with the rest of the style.

[jfrazierjr]

Very classy look. I would reconsider the woodcut style on the oceans, though. Doesn't seem (at least to me) to be jiving with the rest of the style.

I have to both agree and disagree. It might be a bit dark, but I like the effect from a conceptual level. Perhaps you could space the lines out just a bit more to lighten it up a hair.

I love the border. It goes very well with the color palette you are using.

As for mountains, there are quite a few tutorials for mountains, but I would say a hand drawn style would work very well for this map as long as you pick the right colors. And of course, hand drawn mountains means hand drawn forests with trees tops AND tree trunks to me...

Joe

[Arkm]

Thanks for all the C&C. I have always liked to have new eyes on a project. The insights are very helpful.

I agree with the mountains and forest being hand drawn. I may go back and look at the inspiration to see how they did it.