Highmoon - First attempt at a town map

[goatdealer]

Having been inspired both by the helpful comments from you all and by the superb quality of Gandwarf's maps, I thought I would try out one myself. Being no artist (more of an amateur dabbler), I thought I would try to remodel Highmoon. I started by printing the one from the Forgotten Realms Atlas and then added my artistic license to it. With the release of 4E, it also gave an opportunity to make the map slightly different from the original.

I am not sure about the choice of houses but I could not decide which ones I liked best. I have played about with shadows and blur to see what effects I would get, but I have only just started with CD3 and some of it is taking awhile to learn!

Thanks to Gandwarf for providing the motivation!

Out of interest, I assume that it is OK to base maps around FR stuff as they are for my own use? Should I put 'all copyrights acknowledged' on them or something?

[NeonKnight]

You should be fine. It of course never hurts to add the 'Based on Original Map etc....."

[Redrobes]

In a very technical sense you should acknowledge the trade mark with the TM logo - but god help us the day that a fan based free map site gets its collar felt for creating original art based on role playing campaign settings.

[Gandwarf]

Good to see I inspired some people. I love city maps, so the more, the better!
This is also a great opportunity for me to study different styles and stea... eh borrow them for my own maps

What I really like about your map is the forests and the farmland in the clearings. I also like the layout of the city walls. They look organic (they are not placed in straight lines). Seeing forested areas inside the (stone?) walls does look a bit funny to me. It's very expensive to build city walls... so why enclose forest? But hey, this is a fantasy map

Some things I would change:

- The texture of the walls. This texture looks really "rocky" and has lots of color differences and patches.
- Make the towers stand out more. The walls and towers look too much alike right now I think.
- Add different looking houses, as the roofs all share the same colors. Houses are often built using the same materials that can be found in the surrounding area, but a few houses should look different to make the city look more realistic.

Also, is it possible to upload a higher resolution version of your map?

Anyway, keep up the good work. I did about twenty maps with City Designer 3 and as you might have noticed I did improve my skills with each map (and I think there is still room for a lot of improvement, so I am never done ).

[goatdealer]

Thanks for the comments, I have tried out some of the changes suggested by Gandwarf and posted the result.

I have left the trees in as Highmoon is in the centre of the Dalelands and I saw them as an extension of the forest. Some Elves may even live in them (!)

I have changed the walls for a lighter grey and removed a lot of the blurs, I watched the tutorial and used glows instead. I think it looks much better with the red important houses and I may even write a 'Volo' (TM) style guide when the city is done.

The video tutorial also showed me how to save as a rectangular jpeg (I was using screen shots ).I think that the house style is probably wrong as it seems to be the detail that makes the map look blurry.
Anyone have a preferred house stlye they would like to suggest?

[Steel General]

I wonder if some of the 'blurriness' of the buildings would go away if you changed the color of the roads to something a little 'duller' or 'dirtier' or perhaps tone down the texture that is used on them.

[Gandwarf]

Great to see some more work done on the map!

You have made some great improvements, like the different looking housing and the texture for the walls. I think the road texture in the other version of your map are better though! This one detracts too much I think, it looks really grainy.

As for the explanation for the forests: if there are elves you should definitely keep them

I still think you should be able to save the map on a larger resolution. Although I have to admit I cut and pasted all my maps together by making screenshots in CD3... not the best method.

[goatdealer]

After much fiddling, I am fairly happy with this now. I have added blur to the road and a bit of edge fade to break the horrid texture up.
I think the towers are OK now I have changed the walls. I thought I would try the new borders from the November issue of the Cartographers Annual, it looks OK.

I have learnt a lot and the advice is certainly useful (keep it coming) and the different ideas make up for my lack of drawing skills!

I might call this one done, as my players need to go there tomorrow!

[ravells]

Nice map! My advice is to desaturate the colours...they are quite loud, especially the roofs of the houses. The fields are also very bright .... do have a look online at colour tutorials, whether it's fantasy or reality, having a consistent colour pallete really helps. A quick fix would be just to layer a colour on top of the entire map and lower the transparency. Noise is also a great way to add texture. I've had a play and it's by no means perfect but this is sort of what I mean

[Ascension]

I knew there was something tapping me on the shoulder about this but didn't know what it was until Ravs pointed it out...excellent color mod by the way. Overall the composition looks great and the execution is good as well but that one lil bit about color really makes it hum. I grant thee a Nice Job!