Oct / Nov '18 Lite Challenge: Granpatagon Island

[renanosc]

Hi everyone,

This will be my first entry ito the lite challenge, so hopefully I can finish the map as I intend!
This WIP is from a couple days ago, I'll be posting my progress soon

### Latest WIP ###
process-register-1.jpg

I picture the island to be the size of the British Isles, close to the mainland, with a handful of kingdoms and clans acupping the territory. Maybe i will even throw in some banners and coat of arms, but for now i´m focusing on the geography.

[ChickPea]

Welcome to the challenge! Great start on this. I like your mountains.

[Bogie]

Thanks for joining the Challenge renanosc! Your map is looking good.

[renanosc]

Thank you guys!
Here is is yesterday´s WIP:

### Latest WIP ###
process-register-4.jpg

[renanosc]

Thanks, Chickpea. In fact, the mountains were bothering me, it's good to know you like it! I'm currently shadowing them, here's a preview:
mountain shades.jpg

[renanosc]

So, I finished shading the mountains, reworked the rivers in photoshop and added some islands. I realized that I have marked more than 70 towns / cities, so I redistributed them to a more reasonable amount.

### Latest WIP ###
process-register-5.jpg

[Gidde]

The mountain style is clashing a bit with the more modern-looking coast treatment and shading in other parts of the island. Switching to more of a hand-drawn style on those, or switching the mountains to something more stylistic, might bring everything more in tune with each other.

Edit: That sounded harsher than I'd intended; taken individually each piece looks good! It just looks like you have a couple warring styles is all.

[renanosc]

Thanks Gidde! Don't worry, that wasn't harsh at all, The mountains aren't fitting very well and i was hoping some comment here would help me figure it out . I'm testing some options for the relief representation, maybe I'll post some here.

[AlfansosRevenge]

I'm getting the sense that your mountains feature drastically darker shading than the rest of your map. Maybe try a method with less contrast between the sides of the mountains? Also, the linework for the mountains tends to stick out a bit. I would lower the opacity a bit, or try using the overlay blend mode. I'm not sure if those changes would fit the tone more or less, so experiment at will!

[Gidde]

I'm glad you took it as intended A nat-geo style of relief shading would look really good with the other elements; let me see if i can dig an example up. It basically is what you already did, only on an overlay layer and without ridgelines.

Edit: A quick search didn't find *exactly* what I was looking for, but these may give you some inspiration:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...-Map-by-a2area
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...y-Handsome-Rob