Isle of Runa unofficial Lite Challenge entry & a small review of Affinity Designer

[ChickPea]

I'm not able to enter the Lite Challenge any more, but Bogie kindly consented to me stealing one of his island layouts so that I could take part unofficially.

I bought Affinity Designer a couple of months back but I've been so busy I haven't had time for mapping and had barely used it. I was determined to give it a serious workout, so I've been working with it for the last week to make this map.

I do a lot of vector (in Inkscape) to compensate for my lack of drawing skills, then I usually finish up in Gimp. There's a lot of exporting/importing PNGs between the two, which isn't a huge hassle, but I love that I can do it all in the one program with Affinity Designer. It has its vector 'persona' (as they call it) which works like most vector-y software with paths & objects etc. But then you can switch to the 'pixel persona' and create raster layers, where you can draw/paint much the same as you would in PS or Gimp. Obviously the pixel layers won't scale without loss of quality the way the vector layers will, but that wasn't an issue for me. There are some things that Inkscape does better (like Pattern along Path), but Designer supports SVG so it was easy to create in Inkscape then open the SVG in Designer (I did that in this map with something moderately complicated, and didn't have any compatibility issues.) The brush system seems decent enough - to me - though how it compares to something like PS, I don't know (I'm not certain if it's the same brush system in Affinity Designer as Affinity Photo - it could well be). For shading mountains and ground terrain, it was more than adequate. It comes with a relatively limited number of brushes, but people in the Affinity Forums have made and shared a load of them, particularly texture brushes. The software's also got masks, layer blend modes, layer effects, adjustments etc. Curving text along a path was a skoosh.

For the way I work, Designer's fantastic and suits me perfectly, and I'm well pleased. I just wish it worked in Linux, but maybe it'll open via Wine at some point down the line.

Anyway, the map...! I won't have much time over the next week (my sis is getting married next weekend!) and I wanted to get it finished and out the way, so here it is. I think I would do something different with the forests if I was doing it again, but mostly I'm happy with how it turned out, considering I spent less than a week on it and was wrestling with new software.

map2.jpg

[Mouse]

Oh that's brilliant, ChickPea

Well worth a rep on top of that job you did with our favourite books!

I look at that map with envious eyes. Yes, I tried Affinity Photo, not designer, but I was put off Affinity generally by the way photo just didn't like my Wacom tablet

Its good to see you drawing stuff

[ThomasR]

Thanks for sharing your experience CP and the map is gorgeous, simple and vivid and very elegant.

I understand that the rule about three silver compasses is at work but i wish you'd be able to participate to the vote even if you cannot win. That would be a serious contender here

[Abu Lafia]

Fantastic map ChickPea. It's definitely recognizable as one of yours! I love the way you approached the mountains on it, very pleasing. Also thanks for sharing your insights on Affinity Designer. Seems to be a great choice for someone who regularly switches between vector and raster in the workflow like you. Keep up the great work!

[ChickPea]

Thanks for your comments, guys. Much appreciated.

[Kellerica]

Great work on this! It's simple, yes, but I think it works well. The colors are a little meh for my personal taste, but you know I love my dark and murky color schemes... The coat of arms in particular looks great.

Glad to see someone getting use out of AfDe as well... I bought it some time ago myself, but shamefully I still haven't gotten around to actually using it. It looks like a great tool though - maybe I'll give it a go soon.

[Sapiento]

Looks great!

[arsheesh]

Looking really nice Chickpea! I love those big hills.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[FrancescaBaerald]

Great work!Bravo!

[Akae]

yeah good work!!!