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It's looking good so far. I really like the style. Can't help you with Photoshop unfortunately. You can't stroke a path with a dotted line? I'm a little surprised at that.
Continent of Anasthias - 1930s gazetteer style
I'm creating a "modern" map of my continent of Anasthias (for comparison see here for a historic map, and here for a terra-incognita world map).
The style is inspired by the interwar gazetteers of the 1930s - my family had a Pears Cyclopedia that I absolutely loved as a child, full of facts and maps. I'm planning some panels on the right and left with facts and figures (populations, faiths, currency, principle cities, exports etc).
In context, Harthera and Orror are two enormous rival nations: Orror a vast somewhat benign theocracy, Harthera an aggressive naval imperial power. Anarthis, Munatan and Torthien are regions with multiple nations, in which the Great Powers squabble for influence in a kind of cold war/scramble for Africa.
This is a first draft, I still have a lot of detail to fill in, and I need to find a better way to distinguish roads and borders. It's especially difficult in Orror which has six main regions, consisting of provinces and districts. It's a limitation of doing this in Photoshop that I can't make these dotted lines, so suggestions appreciated.
Anyway I'm quite proud of the general style! This is an important map in my Helevos world, one I've severely struggled with for a few years but I'm quite pleased with it. Being a guildmember has seriously helped me up my creative game, so I'm very grateful to all of you for your support and advice!x
anasthias modern frame.png
It's looking good so far. I really like the style. Can't help you with Photoshop unfortunately. You can't stroke a path with a dotted line? I'm a little surprised at that.
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams"
I am rather undecided on the light-coloured labels. They seem to be (at least for Orror and Harthera) brigher than the base paper colour... which is quite hard to achive with printing. It also seems that you have put some kind of shadow under them, which makes them seem to float... and I (personal opinion) don't think this fits the style.
PS should have an option for dotted lines, but as a GIMP user I can't help you there. I found the GIMP dotted lines to be too limited, and have switched to Inkscape if I want to do them.
So much for the criticism... now for the rest of the map.
IT'S GLORIOUS! Like you, I love the mapping styles from the early to mid 20th century... and I think you have nailed it!
I love the style, looks great. I'm wondering, are you meaning to do dotted lines instead of the orange lines in Orror? If so this is very simple in PhotoShop, and I think it would look really good on this map. You can easily make a custom brush that will make a dotted line just by tweaking a few settings in the brush control panel on a round brush, and then if you prefer you can even stroke a path with the new brush, tho I always prefer the look when done by hand. If I'm correct in what you're saying, and forgive me if I've misunderstood, then let me know, and I'll give you the settings I used to make a dotted line brush... Again, good work, I like these modern maps, my family had a big set of encyclopaedias full of these types of maps too so I have a soft spot for them.
Rob, looks great. I love what you've done here. I am confused though...how is Photoshop limiting you with doing the borders as dotted lines?
You can make dotted line in photoshop, no problem. Choose brush of your want, go to BRUSH/WINDOW, choose Brush Tip Shape - under spacing, just open spacing to over 120% or more, here you can change size and then use Brush Dynamics for other controls.
Originally Posted by Freodin
Thanks well spotted, that was a mistake! I thought I'd set the background to white, I'll fix it
Yes you can draw new dotted lines, but I've already drawn these, so I'd have to redraw all of the borders and roads by hand, which is irritating and time-consuming. Most importantly it means I can't easily change the style if I don't like it, or want to use a different line style for a different map. Ideally I want to be able to apply a dotted-line *style*, which I can't do to a bitmap, so I'll probably have to get to grips with Illustrator or use a different method.
NB I have a large-scale master map of Anasthias which I use snapshots of for smaller regional and national maps. I change the look and feel of everything using a system of layer comps, which enables me to switch between maps of various points in history with the click of a mouse, by applying layer styles.
I’m just going to add to what Snodsy said, just in case you’re interested. After you’ve set you’re brush if you choose to stroke a path. You can go over where you want you’re lines with the pen tool on a new layer, then making sure you have the brush selected click the paths tab just above you’re layers panel, and at the bottom left of the paths panel you’ll see some circles. The first circle is solid, don’t click that one, the one beside it is a drawn circle not filled in, if you hover you’re mouse over it it will say stroke path with brush, click that one, and wherever you made you’re path with the pen tool, or other tool of you’re choosing you’re line will appear. Just make sure the path you crated with the pen tool is still visible, then click the brush tool button or else you’ll get a solid line...I hope that helps.
Edit...I just read you’re most recent post before hitting send. I wonder if you can still somehow select you’re line, and turn it into a path, and then stroke it...hmm I’m curious now, I may have to try this.
Ok well thanks both of you for advice! I don't really know anything about paths etc in Photoshop it's not something I've learned, so thanks I'll give it a try. Like I said, being a guildmember has really helped stretch my skills so I'm very grateful to everyone
Right, Draft 2! I haven't tackled the main map yet but I've added some mini-maps with more information. I had these maps knocking about so thought I should put them to use! Also helps pad out the page to A3 size.
Btw, anyone know how to calculate area of pixels in Photoshop CS6?! Had to blatantly make up some land area figures. Takes me right back to the night before submitting my school geography project
anasthias modern frame v2.png
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