Reply With QuoteLooks good. For labeling the things without over crowding it use a thin font like Arial and/or a smaller font size. Don't worry about your English, we all manage to understand one another here just fine...we speak maps
Tyalon
This is my first post in this forum, so i hope it works.
The first thing i have to do, is to apologize for my English. English is not my mother tongue, so i hope you can overlook potential nonconformities.
So here is my first map. It is based on Tear's Tutorial(at this point: Thank you very much Tear ;-) )
Kontinentforum2.jpg
I am looking forward to your comments and your suggestions for potential advancements.
My primary concern is to get a suggestion for bringing in some regional and river names without let it looking overcrowded.
Last edited by TBF; 12-29-2009 at 04:14 PM.
Looks good. For labeling the things without over crowding it use a thin font like Arial and/or a smaller font size. Don't worry about your English, we all manage to understand one another here just fine...we speak maps
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
That sentence must be the contradiction of the century.Originally Posted by TBF
As for the font, I too would go for a slimmer font, that goes a little better with style of the map. You can always try lowering the opacity a little, that usually makes the font less obstructive.
A point of criticism: As you mention, you're using Tear's tutorial, which is awesome, but I think you need to work a little more on refinement. What I mean is, for example, the peaks on the mountains don't really look like peaks, because it's obviously the "metal landscape" pattern that's used. The same goes for the grass, which has a "gravel" pattern overlay set to color burn.
Of course, everyone has to learn, and I'm sure that if you practice some more, you'll get it right. Keep at it.
Last edited by Daelin; 12-29-2009 at 05:04 PM.
Thank you for your replies. Daelin, you are right, when you say i had to work on my refinement^^. Thats why i droped Art after the ninth grade. Thats something i should work on^^.
But while we are at the grass and peak pattern. While i was working i recieved the impressions, that the patterns might be scaled to high, because Tear worked with a smaller map. Do you think that this pattern shows the same effect on the map scaled down or should i use another one?
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure about whether scaling it down helps. I had bit of trouble figuring out how Tear got to his final version, 'cause when I tried to follow his tut by the word, I got something close to what you have now. I asked him if he had scaled the Saderan map he posted here, and he said yes, slightly.
But while his tut is great, you don't have to follow it slavishly. The map that I'm currently working on, for instance, (http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=8510), takes some of the steps from Tear, but the "peaks" are just plain white color, not a pattern, and the grass is just a green color with some noise and a blur, no pattern overlay.
I think the mountains worked out pretty well, I might changed the grass, though.
I agree with what others have said about the mountains.
Also, some of your rivers behave a little odd. They aren't outright bad, but just odd. Specifically, there are two that stand out. The large river that runs through Sindrichion and Berion to the mountains, flows for a long way along the coastline. It's not impossible, but I don't see terrain features that would indicate a river valley there.
The other one is the river in the southeast from Hammersund to Die Eiserne, and it is the same issue.
Other than that, the map looks good. I do think that reducing the fonts a little will let the map itself show a little more.
They look a little odd, because i draw the political map first and then i noticed that i needed something for the border^^. The variant of the continent you see there is the last of a row. But unfortunately the maps are on the harddisk drive of my old computer and i am just to lazy to tow it three levels up.^^ So i had to work with the alpha AutoREALM Version of it. And there are the rivers actually absolutely odd.^^
this weekend in found time to edit the map.
The down-scaling at the grass-pattern working worked and i draw the peak lines more accurated(actually i misunderstood for what they are good). Furthermore i disabled the texture-layer, i think the map looks so more bright.
As everytime i am interested in your suggestions.
Neat stuff here, reminds me a bit of the 'salt maps' (or whatever you call them) I did in elementary school.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
To be honest, i have no idea what a salt map could be^^, but thank you very much ;-)
EDIT: Here is a politcal version of the map:
Last edited by TBF; 01-16-2010 at 11:05 AM.
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