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Off the top of my head, try a MULTIPLY layer. All white is removed then.Originally Posted by Vaxfiend
Right! Yes, I will work on it quite a lot I expect in the grayscale only, I just need to figure out how to most efficiently transparent out all the white. I'm trying masking with various tweaks, but it's not working to my satisfaction.
Off the top of my head, try a MULTIPLY layer. All white is removed then.
Yes, set the linework layer to multiply, and the white will disappear. You can then put a layer underneath it, such as a texture or colour layer.
The layout of your city is good, and you're buildings all look like they're a good scale.
When I saw this, it made me wonder about something that features in many fantasy maps: why is the city divided into districts with so many internal walls? Walls are difficult, time consuming and expensive to build, and are usually only useful to fend off enemies outside the city. There's not much point having many walls within the city, occupying valuable real estate.
[I'm not having a go at you, Vaxfiend, and if you have an in-world explanation, it's all good. Just thought I'd mention that this is a thing I've seen often, and don't know where it comes from]
THW
Formerly TheHoarseWhisperer
It is indeed something to think about. With Medieval stuff, that is a definitive to consider. But fantasy, there is more room for the out of the ordinary. With magic it might be a lot easier to build walls.
Excellent point! When I embark on a map, I always have a storyline going on in my head as I draw, as I did with this city. The walls are indicative of the expansion of the city and the politics. As it grew, buildings appeared outside of it, were incorporated, but perhaps kept within their own district to separate the "haves" and "have nots". At one point in its history, disease may have been a consideration, and the use of gates to segregate populations would help prevent the spread. Perhaps certain nobles on the city council had dominion over one district or another, and the walls served more as a line of demarcation than defense.
All of these points would be worked into a campaign backstory and provide starting points for various adventures within any city. The walls and towers would also be constructed using a variety of styles and techniques, which would easily date the period or the ruler.
Thanks for the feedback and comments!
Vaxfiend
Very good point, that. Magic would certainly have gone into a good amount of the construction of this city, at various points in its nearly 2,000-year history. But the apparent use of magic lies without, in that ridiculously straight highway upon which the city sits. That is part of the campaign backstory and it's as straight as it appears - no cobblestone, wagon ruts, gravel beds or such there.
Vax
Really impressive, especially for such a big city! What's your plan for moving to digital? I'm at the point where I need to move to digital but I'm still learning the ropes (Wacom Intuos Pro tablet and Photoshop, but I'm considering Illustrator instead).
Welcome! I'm new as well, still learning methods and techniques. I'm using a Wacom tablet as well, and photoshop. I'm tempted to try illustrator for a vector image vs. a raster, but I will stick with the psd format for now. I'm done drawing with pen and paper, having snapped pics and imported into photoshop. I have the black image isolated on its own layer so now I can do work with fills and other tricks. But only after I do a lot of work on it.
I played around with Illustrator yesterday, under the tutelage of a professional graphic designer who actually uses Illustrator for her job. Holy hell, it was complicated! It made Photoshop seem intuitive. However, the "trace image" feature was really neat, as it literally turns your hand-drawn map into an Illustrator image. I see the benefits of vector over raster but will probably stick with Photoshop for now, especially since I first have to clean up the maps in Photoshop before importing them to Illustrator.
Yeah Illustrator can be daunting, to say the least! So many vectorsIt's big bonus of course is scalability, but it lacks the artistic feel of hand-drawn raster art. Right now, I'm hemming and hawing about if I want to tweak half my lil' buildings in this map, before moving onto colors, shades and other features.
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