Oct/Nov Lite Mapping Challenge: Spyrmenchi Island

[Mouse]

Then it must be octarine

I only see mint green, of course, since I am not a wizard!

[rdanhenry]

I see brown hills. The sea is an unusual hue, but I think it works. Actually, the only thing that I don't care for are the rivers, if they are meant to be rivers and not great cracks in the land allowing the sea to reach deep into the island. Oh, and the top of the northmost mountain in the east gets covered by the hills.
I do see minty lowlands that I assume are grassy.

[Redrobes]

??!!?? Oh? This is getting interesting. I find neither green nor aqua hills, only brown ones. This could be turning into a magical mystery map!

Above the brown hills icons in the top right is a patch of pale aqua colour which I thought was slightly raised up lands but could be something else but I think its the tint that storm is talking about.

You know, someone should print this on material and make a dress out of it !

[ladiestorm]

OMG Redrobes!!!

Well, I went back and looked at my map this morning, and I didn't like the colors I chose last night. I also thought I had too many hills... and the color progression isn't what I was looking for. So I pretty much went back to square one with the coloring, and redid my hills. I'm still not too sure about the color combos, as they are still a little bold for what i'm trying to do.

What I'm actually trying to accomplish, is a 'tinted' 'hand drawn' style map. The colors are actually supposed to be color tints... meaning white, with just a hint of the different colors. That's what I'm working toward. Now the symbols themselves, the forests, mountains and hills have color and there is no way I can get around that, because unfortunately, I don't have any transparent symbols to work with. I had originally thought that the inks symbols were on a transparent background, but they aren't, they are actually on a white background so they don't work for what I'm trying to do.

I do believe that the changes I've made will solve some of those color issues people were having. And I'm not actually done yet, so we will see where this goes.

### Latest WIP ###
Spyrmenchi.3.JPG

Anyway, I have the color bases better now, I think... I just have to work on the shading...

[Redrobes]

I like this a lot better. Its not for me to say what kind of map you should make tho. If you wanted those tints then its fine.

How easy is it to import new bitmaps into CC3 from existing images to make up new versions of the icons ? If you have an image which is white with a black line art on it as an icon bitmap then you should be able to make a copy of the image (i.e. new image with same pixel size) in say gimp, flood it all black and then use the originial black and white one as the alpha mask for it. You may need to invert it as normally white means opaque and black means clear. Anyway, if you did that then the icon lines would be the alpha values so that it converts it from black and white icon to clear and black. So depends on how much effort it would be to do that with all of the icons that your using.

[Mouse]

The reason those symbols are on a white background is to prevent bits of underlying symbols from showing through.

Even if you turned the white bits transparent....

Oh.... my.... Goodness...

Lightbulb moment!

What if you use a Colour Key effect on the symbols sheet, and set the transparency colour to white, instead of the default magenta?

It might not work because these are symbols, not fills (and not every effect works on the symbols), but its worth a try, isn't it?

That way, the white area in each newly placed symbol will automatically block out the underlying bits of black in the symbols below it, while at the same time becoming invisible in the render.

Well that's the theory anyway....


EDIT: forget that. It doesn't work. But there IS a way of doing it - I've just realised that if you put the colour layer over the top of the mountain layer the white parts of the mountains will also be coloured, but you will need to use a Blend Mode sheet effect on the colour layer to let the blackness of the black parts come through.

I've tried it on some of the same mountains, placing them underneath a parchment layer with no transparency or anything, but with the Blend mode effect set to multiply the black lines show through

[ladiestorm]

uhm... do you both realize you just started talking in a foreign language to me, right? I have no clue what either of you just said. I have some ideas on how to get closer to what I want... and even if I don't....it's still making for an interesting map.

[rdanhenry]

Color is a pretty subjective element to begin with and monitors differ, but that said, I find that this last revision has made the green somewhat overwhelming and now clashes with the sea. The reduced shadows around the coasts is an improvement, though. I would suggest that the same adjustment be made to the lakes as well.

[Mouse]

uhm... do you both realize you just started talking in a foreign language to me, right? I have no clue what either of you just said. I have some ideas on how to get closer to what I want... and even if I don't....it's still making for an interesting map.

You said you don't have any transparent symbols to work with, and we were trying to solve the problem for you

Its solved - without using anything but CC3+ and its built in sheet effects

If you use a parchment background, and move the background right up to the top of the visible map (put it at the bottom of the sheet dialogue), and add a Blend Mode effect, with the mode to 'Multiply', and 100% Opacity, you will make all the Schley symbols appear to be completely transparent.

Very tiny snippet of the effect (because this isn't my thread)

Schley Mountain.jpg

Its an adapted PS trick - put the paper on top of the map.

[ladiestorm]

hmmmmmmmmmm.... possibilities... I will check it out. Does it have to be a parchment fill?

oh, and rdanhenry, I was already planning to, just missed it in the last update is all