First Map In Progress

[CAgrippa]

Hi all. I'm new to cartography, working on maps for a large and complex fantasy world I've been designing. I'm using CC3.

This map is of a section of the world, in the southeast of the Circle Sea. I was trying to get an effect something like an old-fashioned political map.
Gerranel Map 004a.JPG
One problem I have is that I can't seem to get a nice weathered-parchment sort of overlay onto it. ProFantasy had a thing about how to do this, but it's in one of the annuals and I don't really want to spend $40 just for that one piece of advice.

(Incidentally, I should note that the small script labels are legible when this map is printed; I think they're less legible in the JPG because I didn't want a huge file.)

Any comments are much appreciated!

[coredump]

Just a shout out to this Tutorial: http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...maps-gimp.html

I am pretty sure you can use some of the techniques there for antique looking maps.

About parchment, there's RobA tutorial http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...sing-gimp.html

A simple search on the How To forum can probably unearth some stuff that you can adapt to PS.

[jbgibson]

Welcome to the Guild, CAgrippa. We really appreciate folks willing to jump right in, and a map right in your first post is worth a smidgen of rep all by itself.

Go ahead and post big files - the CG is all about making *and looking at* maps, so there's a generous size limit. It varies by file type a little, but it's around 4MB. There's a max size note available on the upload attachments page. You're doing a good job of getting a period feel, working within your chosen tool.

[waldronate]

In CC3, you should be able to put a parchment background into the map by drawing a box on the first sheet (BACKGROUND or something like that) and setting the fill style to bitmap. You can get a parchment texture of an appropriate size from many places, including [CG Textures] - Textures for 3D, graphic design and Photoshop!, a google images search, or even a search here at the guild.

[CAgrippa]

Thank you all. Those tutorials are fabulous! I think I will play with GIMP a bit until I get the hang of what's called for, then try an overlay as RobA suggests -- but in CC3 that could be a transparent overlay or a background, not sure.

[CAgrippa]

Messed with GIMP a bit. Those tutorials are brilliant! Here's where I stand:
GerranEl - oldmap.jpg
At this point, I think I'm mostly going to get on with other map projects and come back to this one later. It's fine for what it is, and I need to get some more techniques under my belt before I can make really effective changes. I also did some things in CC3 that I now realize were a mistake, but they're not so easy to undo.

Comments?

[Maldavos]

Well, I think you just made one heck of an argument for the power of that tutorial.

Map looks great, I like that you smoothed the fonts and went with more brown. Looks very authentic.