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[HigoChumbo]

Hi guys, I was looking around the internet for advice and this looks like the perfect place for what I'm after.

I'm making a world map for a fantasy book, and while I like the general direction it's taking given that I'm a complete beginner, I'm getting stuck with some details that still feel bland. I'll share a few experimental images to illustrate my point (though keep in mind this is still not nearly finished work in progress and I still have many pending tasks, like formatting text and improving readability, adding cities and roads, further experimenting with textures and backgrounds and so on):

Sin título.png Sin título2.png MELVIA-colorneg.jpg mont.jpg

• I am particularly unhappy with the mountains, they look a little bit too bland for me, and though I've followed several tutorials (including some in this site using parchment overlays), I'm having a hard time making them pop out without having them look like a stain (it doesn't help neither that the background I have makes the overlays look very bright orange/yellowish, so I've had had to just stick to low opacity/flow standard brushes with normal blending). I guess the consequence of this is that the map seems to have cohesion between open regions and mountains (though that might also partly be because I'm keeping the parchment background for the ground despite adding colouring to other features).

• My other main problem is also related to mountains, since I believe I overdid it and drew way too many, and I'm going crazy having to manually colour the shadows and highlights for all of them (specially since I'm using a mouse). The tutorials normally stick to a very detailed handful of mountains, but I have hundreds, is there any way of speeding up the process and making them look good without having to add detail to all of them one by one?

Besides that, any general advice on how to improve the map would be highly appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance for your attention

* by the way, the city icon in the middle is not my own artwork, it's just a placeholder that I will re-draw myself when I get to that point.

[Diamond]

I actually LOVE those mountains. But yes, unfortunately, the downside is that to get that great look, there are no easy shortcuts. You've got to put in the work. You could just copy/paste dozens of copies, but it'd ruin the look.

I'd be far more concerned about your rivers. Except in very rare (and usually temporary) cases, rivers don't act like yours. That system in Samaria is... well. It ain't right. Think of a river system like a tree, where the branches start at high elevations and flow downhill, gradually merging with other branches/tributaries to form one main trunk which empties into a lake or sea. Rivers don't split as they make their way to lower elevations; water always seeks the path of less resistance. If a river splits because initially conditions are the same in both branches, over time one will become more dominant and the other will dry up. Run a garden hose down an embankment and you'll see what I mean.

But. I overall really like the look of this! Don't abandon your mountains, they look fantastic. I also like the forests; they work well with the mountains, and the various coloration in them looks good. Just keep rolling and try different things out. That's really the best advice I can give. As far as specifics, you might try blending the color of the mountains more with the land. Maybe add two or three transitional zones in between where you gradually step down the color.

[Mouse]

Oh boy! If only I could draw such lovely mountains!

Diamond is right - they're great

I don't know how much you choose to invest in this project, but if you want to make life a little bit easier for yourself you could invest in a tablet?

I have a small Wacom Bamboo. Even though its relatively small, and you still have to stare at the screen while drawing on a blank black pad on the desk with a special pen, its a LOT easier than using the mouse - a lot faster too.

I especially recommend getting one if you intend to continue making maps after you have finished this one

[HigoChumbo]

That system in Samaria is... well. It ain't right. Think of a river system like a tree, where the branches start at high elevations and flow downhill, gradually merging with other branches/tributaries to form one main trunk which empties into a lake or sea. Rivers don't split as they make their way to lower elevation.

There I was trying to get more like a big delta running through a fertile, low plain (think the Nile delta), though I guess I made them too big and too weird to look convincing. Thanks for the tip, I'll try to get them look more real.

As far as specifics, you might try blending the color of the mountains more with the land. Maybe add two or three transitional zones in between where you gradually step down the color.

I'll definitely try this and report back with the results. I guess it's the consequence of not having fully made up my mind about the final style. Initially I was just going to go with the usual full sepia, but then I tried some colour in the mountains and forests and I liked it, while still haven't tackled the actual "land" background which remains in the original plain sepia. I though I'd either have to go full sepia or full colour, but actually just trying a smoother transition as you suggest might get me the best of both worlds =)

I don't know how much you choose to invest in this project, but if you want to make life a little bit easier for yourself you could invest in a tablet?

Well, the thing is that, while the book is indeed legit and is going to get published soon, I'm just an amateur when it comes to drawing and just doing it as a favour for the author. I'm not even going to get paid

Though I'm told the editor actually quite liked the progress of the map, so, having seen how much effort goes into these things... if him or someone else ever ask me to make another one, I'll definitely get a tablet. I don't think my wrists can take two more months of drawing hills and trees xD

[Wingshaw]

Like Mouse and Diamond have said, those mountains look really good. I've struggled with the task of doing so much mountain shading, too. One option that I have tried is to complete a mountain range, and then (if it has roughly the same shape as another mountain range) copy and paste it, and then go in with a fine brush and make changes. When zoomed out, it probably won't be visible that they're copied. You could also try adding some snow to the peaks: that might make them stand out more.

One other thing about the mountains: if you're unhappy with them it might not be because of the colour or texture, but because of the overall shape - your mountain ranges are very blobby, whereas real mountain ranges tend to be at least a bit linear. That said, it may just be too much work to go back and change them now, and I honestly don't think you need to: they're really well drawn already.

Wingshaw

[HigoChumbo]

A quick update:

MELVIA-cesped.jpg

• I'm finally happy with the mountains. Apparently the issue was not having enough contrast between the colouring in highlights and shadows. I'll still tweak them further, but I think I'm already in a good spot
• Added town icons and paths, and I'm slowly improving the readability of some text plates.
• I haven't yet made any modification on the rivers because I'd have to deal with a ton of layers, I'll leave that for last, if I have time.

• I am now experimenting with color. The pic above is a test with wheat farmlands (for instance, in Trevia and Samaria) and with your usual horselord grass steppe (Lavidia). I'm not happy with either. In Lavidia I can't get the steppe colour right, and in both it still feels like it does not fit the map. Maybe I should just leave it with the base parchment texture (eg. Arania, Centia), though that feels a bit lazy and empty, and with little difference between regions. Any advice? The tutorials I've been following are pretty much just about setting up grungy brushes, and while the results are nice, I think I'm going to need something more advanced to fit that into my map. Wheat is actually the sigil of the kingdom, so it'd be nice to include it in some way or another.

• I want to include a couple scroll/banner text boxes (for the name of the capital and the name of the world), I've found some free resources online but I get nothing that adapts to the weird shape of my text. Is there any tutorial on how to create these things from scratch? Maybe a particularly good/varied free source of text scrolls?

[Mouse]

This is coming on really well

The only thing I can see that may cause a few problems is the rather large dark glow under a couple of the mountain range labels. Its starting to dominate the shading of the mountains. I have a feeling that the labels would be just as readable if you undid that extra dark glow you've put on them since the last time - maybe take that faint glow off altogether and just darken the outline a very slight tad, they would be perfectly readable.

EDIT: I don't think there is anything wrong with your wheat lands. They look fine to me.

On the scroll front - I don't have anything like a scroll in my free texture albums, but it isn't too difficult to draw one - the advantage being that it immediately matches your map, and you don't have to do a lot of work trying to make something that's the wrong size/shape/colour/texture fit with your personal style. A Google search for scroll will give you all kinds of ideas to make your own

[HigoChumbo]

detalle2.jpg

I toned down the drop shadows as you suggested. Also increased the text size and will probably tweak the mountain colouring beneath them to get better results without making it look like a black patch.

I played a bit with the brushes and I'm a bit happier with the wheat now, though I might do further experiments.

As for the banner, I ended up drawing it by hand from scratch, I thought I was going to be worse at that, but I'm reasonably happy with the result. Now I have to make a much bigger, much more complex one for the name of the world, but after doing the one for the capital city, I'm more confident about what I can do ^^

[ThomasR]

Those are some great looking maps !

[HigoChumbo]

Probably the final version. Could still improve, but after 2 months of intensive unpaid work, I'm a bit tired of it (though given that my name is going to appear in the credits, my pride is making me want to push it further than the lack of remuneration would suggest )

último día.jpg

• I've had to shrink the map horizontally because the editor gave us the printing size after the map was almost finished.
• There are a few details that I could have looked upon (like the rivers/deltas in Samaria) but they are buried under thousands layers, many of which I had to merge when I shrinked the map, so changing those minor details would require a truckload of work.
• I've had to modify a few details to adapt to the author's taste (like the typography in the main title).

chulo.jpg

This is initially what I intend to send to the editor this week. What do you guys think? Is there something you think it's worth retouching before having it printed? Cheers =)