Repped!!!
Great tutorial .... I don't know GIMP at all... tho I believe i have a downloaded version.. I prefer my PhotoshopCS3... from what i've read most of this can be applied to photoshop maps...
I'll most likely be confused for a long time until I sort it out but you are my hero, great advice on the burn/dodge and the application of layer masks and how to bring in a scanned handdrawn map...
A couple of points I wanted to ask or note on ....
When you do your first sketches... why desaturate each layer instead of just lowering the opacity... or is this just a matter of terminology?
Since I'm GIMP-retarded (that just sounds BAD) I don't know if they have the equivelant .. but when doing the sea block with different fuzzy brush colors... I found (when doing the forests for Stormwatch) that selecting both a foreground color and background color of light and dark of your preffered colors (this case, darker blue and lighter blue) Photoshop has a brush function called 'color dynamics' the settings allow you to adjust the foreground/background jitter (around 80%) saturation jitter (20%) brightness jitter (8%) and Purity (+9%) you get a nice random assorted blends of between your two colors.... maybe this helps ... maybe this doesn't ... but I found the effect quite interesting to play with and could apply to numerous mapping elements.
I could be totally missing some points in the tutorial... but I thought I might mention that locking the layers I currently aren't using a useful way to avoid erasing or otherwise selecting the wrong layer or being on the wrong layer when working with a map ...
In some areas, would(n't) using a saved selection be a shorter route than five million layer masks when you only want to affect one area of your map? This is more of a general question for any map really that I've been meaning to ask someone who is obviously far more learned than I. I do understand that having a layermask is probably a far more useful tool than just a saved selection, i was just curious.
is there a way that I can just make a copy of all your cool abilities to make maps and useful tutorials and then transfer it into my brain *instantly* .... ya know... like in the Matrix? That would just save me LOADS of time and energy
Great work... I'd of repped you fifty dozen more times if I could have... but .. you know... rules and stuff