E(experiment)IP - Lanstont Swamplands

[GlassSphere]

Well here is another attempt at a terrain type I have never experimented with. I wanted to practice/find some methods before maybe making a map of somwhere the Thrubmorton Fens (an area part of the CWBP) to submit for June's challenge.

While creating things It's fun to be able to make things, and then realize the behavior of it afterwards. For instance, I decided to have a random water and mountains and naturally they conflicted with one another in some areas to create impassable(or just inconvenient) marshlands. I decided to create a feeling that some of these are new ponds, so you see some paths leading into them disappearing, and another newer path taking the alternate route. I realized that paths probally change alot in swamps, bending around new marshes, or getting cut off entirely. The reason I named the road reflects this, the one specific road would be known as the Mud Rope Trail for bending alot around marshes, making it often muddy, yet never being broken/cut.

I knew mountains wouldn't work well here, but hills or bluffs could. I'm not sure if that type of mountain/hill I created looks too out of place in a swamp, or just flat out weird.

I had fun creating Lanstont, It's a small palisade town with a keep set on top of one of the local buttes.

Tarvines are huge vines with a blackish sap coating their branches.

[NeonKnight]

Its funny you say Mountains would never work here. You certainly never grew up where I did

Prince George BC is in the midst of the province of British Columbia, surrounded by mountains on all sides, and yet, the surrounding land is also very swampy. Probably due to the Beavers and what not in the area.

[Redrobes]

I really like the map. The trees and scrub look like it could come from a swampy rough terrain. I admit that in the UK there aren't very much truly wild areas. An hours walk max from the remotest place in England and your in a pub / shop / tourist info center etc. So we don't have much wild swamp areas and as such thats pretty unfamiliar sort of terrain for me. I'll look up British Colombia as a source.

Would be very cool to have another map for Thrub. Theres still a load of places with nothing but a red dot to cover and plenty more places that are not yet marked on the map.

[The-Somberlain]

Very nice map! I think in game terms it is very useful and informative. It looks like an area filled with lizard men, attacking the poor fellas of Lanstont Keep all the time!

Is it in Photoshop? Are you using layer styles, clouds, etc?

[Sigurd]

Really nice setting. How did you make the landscape? It's a very pleasing style.

I'd love two more versions of it, if you feel so kind.

1) I'd love the region without the fort - So i can throw a dungeon underneath it . I'll take whatever resolution you can give me.

2) I'd love a zoom centered on the fort for characters to walk around in .

Its very pretty.

[Ascension]

I think you did an excellent job creating that swamp look and feel...now I gotta step up my game 'cuz I've been thinking about doing this and lo and behold you got the drop on me. Guess that means I'll write a tut as well.

Excellent, keep it up

[GlassSphere]

Well Ascension your tutorial on trees was why I created all the shrubberies.

Sigurd- Should I make the roads abit brighter if your going to use this? do you want the names/text in it as well? And, you want one simply with the fort not there, a flat butte? Or with the whole butte removed as well?

And yea this was made in photoshop with filter-render-clouds (bow down to this filter) and layer styles. Theres also abit of brushing for making the mountains abit more organic, and of course for the shrubberies. I used a texture of concrete I found for the mountains, but you can hardly even see it except for the whiter/ granite-ish part

[Sigurd]

Roads are great! Tell me you used CS3, then I can say "well at least I don't have that software " You have a very nice touch with making it look 'organic' and the texture is very pleasing.


Sigurd

[ravells]

I love the colours and the swampy textures....excellent work!

[Finis]

I really love this style. I like how your bodies of water still have that flora covered feel to them; as if they have all manner of greenery growing across the surface.

The keep and hills are also excellent. Nice work