JUNE 2007 ENTRY: Niagara

[RobA]

The roads were imported as a SVG to a merged path. I just stroked the path with a 4 px solid line, then re-stroked the same path with a white dashed line.

The road layer is set to a multiply (IIR) blend mode.

-Rob A>

[RPMiller]

That is really shaping up to be a beautiful map Rob! I love the subtle color changes and I'm envious of the elevation representation.

[ravells]

This is looking simply superb. I love the way you've used the woodcut effect on the coast and the sponge effect for the sea (never seen that done before) - although I'm curious, there are two little blips on the right hand side off the coast line - are they meant to be anything specific?

The other thing that I love is that the rivers look ever so slightly indented into the landscape, but for the life of me I can't tell whether that's just an optical illusion with the colour scheme you've used or whether you've added a barely perceptible highlight on the edge of the river or the river banks. Do tell!

The landscape texture is just wow.

Maybe you can find someone to sell this map to when you've finished, maybe a local newspaper if they want to overlay specific information on top in relation to a story?

Really, really beautiful.

Ravs

[RobA]

Thanks for the complements!

The two blips are small islands. I think I either need to emphasize them more, or eliminate them entirely (bwahaha....good-by islands, I have the power of of creation and destruction in my hands........

(sorry for that, got carried away for a sec... )

The rivers are kind of indented. I drew a height-field map of the area, then subtracted a blurred copy of the river layer from that, so when I applied the bump map to the main land layer it effectively embossed all the rivers. I also added a blurred copy of the rivers (and roads) to my layer mask for the colouring so there would be a barely perceptible clear area around them. This gave them a bit more punch.

-Rob A>

[RobA]

Lunchtime Project-

Added some labels (but forgot to label the escarpment itself )and pumped up the colours with another wash layer...

[heruca]

The coloring and texturing of the land on this map is absolutely fantastic. Top-notch stuff that I hope I can achieve someday if you'll share your secrets.

But I'm getting the feeling that there is a clash of styles between how the land mass is depicted and how the water is depicted. Have you considered doing away with the woodcut effect and going for a completely naturalistic approach on the water?

[RobA]

But I'm getting the feeling that there is a clash of styles between how the land mass is depicted and how the water is depicted. Have you considered doing away with the woodcut effect and going for a completely naturalistic approach on the water?

I know what you mean. I started the map "old fashioned" in the water then just went crazy with the land.

Here is a redo of the water...

[pyrandon]

I'd respond to this, but I'm busy picking up my eyeballs off the floor, since they popped out when I saw your revision...

[RobA]

Well, I'm done with this.

I added the escarpment (more fun with Inkscape.....path along path is very cool BTW), a title, and a compass rose with East (represented by a cross) as up...

I'm done with this as I spent more time than planned (but it was fun!) and the deadline is now....

Here is a link to the general area:
http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=43...0195&z=10&om=1

-Rob A>

### Winner ###

niagara_final_204.jpg