[WIP] Unnamed

[davoush]

Hello,

This world is still unnamed, but I have been working on it for quite a while. The last few days I have been messing around with various shading options and parchment textures. I have been trying out hatching which has been painfully slow, as I have manually erase the parts which I don't want hatched (working in Affinity Designer, vector-based).

I am not too sure if the hatching is worth it, or if I might be better off just drawing a faint shadow with a low-opacity grunge brush or such. I haven't began to fade and 'age' the hatching on the East continent yet. If anybody has any tips on hatching please do share. My method was simply to create a whole layer of hatching and then erase where unwanted - very tedious.

Any opinions or advice more than welcome.

Thanks.

Edit: See latest post for completely re-worked map.

[Mouse]

Hey davoush

I really really like the hatching - well worth the effort, I think.

Its the background that's bothering me just a bit. The texture is so rough, and the hatching so delicate and fine, that I was half expecting the hatching to be distorted as it ran across the bumps and dips in the paper.

(now I'm going to feel really bad if you tell me you made the paper texture specially for this map!)

[davoush]

Hi Mouse - thanks for your comments. Please don't feel bad, luckily I didn't make it. I encourage harsh criticism in fact! I will certainly think about using a softer texture.

As for the hatching, my main problem is ensuring it stays an even width out from the coastline all round. This is quite tricky manually! If there are any tips on maybe how to select the unwanted parts and just delete/fill over, would be welcome (I rasterised the hatching layer so I could manually erase it)!

[Mouse]

Sorry - you've got me there. I don't know the first thing about AD at all, and its similarity with CorelDraw ends where AD makes use of bitmaps in the vector domain.

I don't think the paper being softer is really going to help all that much. I think a finer grain would probably work better - smooth paper of the sort that you might contemplate drawing such fine hatching on in the first place if you were doing this map by hand.

As for the hatching being the same distance out from the coast all the way around - I don't think its as critical as you might believe it to be. It looks 'natural' the way you are doing it - not overly perfect like a machine would do it.

[davoush]

Following Mouse's suggestion, I have used a finer grain paper texture and I've altered the colour a bit. I am unsure about the coastlines - are they too bright/dark? I have duplicated it, and the lower one has a gaussian blur in the hope that it looks more 'blended' into the paper. I am toying with the idea of a brighter coast, though.

I will probably redo the hatching one more time and then 'age' it a bit (it's tedious so I have to find the motivation), but I think this gives a general impression for now:

Edit: Image removed as map has changed drastically.

[Mouse]

I managed to open it despite a few broadband problems at this end, but I can't open the first one (not your fault - my broadband issues).

From what I remember this new paper looks a lot better than the first.

Are you able to fade the outer extent of the hatching to create a gradient from full opacity at the coast towards none at the outer edge, so that it gently disappears into the blankness of the ocean?

[davoush]

Thanks Mouse - yes I will be doing that with the hatching when I can build up the motivation...!

On a related note, I created another map centred on the opposite side. Now I'm not sure which I prefer as the default 'centre'!

Attachment 96734

[Deoridhe]

Do my eyes deceive, or are the hatches different in the second map too? I agree that the finer paper serves hatching well, and I love the effect. Your top edges are completely awesome as well - I love the rough and wrinkled effect there. Very awesome!

Both maps look cool, which is a mark of a good map.

[davoush]

Thanks, Deoridhe!

The hatching on the second two maps I posted is the same, but slightly different from the first. It's funny that you should mention the rugged coastline on the north of the continents - I was actually just thinking about making them slightly smoother because they aren't really north enough for that type of glacial affect, and the coasts in general are already quite rugged (and I'm not sure that level of detail is appropriate for the scale)! I will have a play around.

I have also been following your Esfera thread - I would never be able to sit down and figure out tectonics like that. Very interesting stuff.

[Deoridhe]

I suppose it depends on where your polar rim is, but it looked far enough north to me! Remember, the great lakes in the US were caused by glacial movement; they can get pretty far down into continents during ice ages, to places we now think of as temperate.

Thanks for following along on Esfera! The tectonics are both interesting and brain breaking; it's fun but frustrating. I want to go for an approximation of verisimilitude before waving my hands and saying "magic", though (there is magic but it's ended up being more like a secondary natural force than the fireballs and cantrips of typical high fantasy).