Kharoun - Orientalist Imaginations (Regional-Map WIP)

[Abu Lafia]

WIP Update:
So, the otherwise very mean gods of Kharoun have been merciful and sent some rain to the arid lands...

I put some green in the deeper rivernear and coastal areas to crack up the monotone redbrown of the map. Thanks THW for the useful tips! I had to adapt a bit in Gimp, but i'm somewhat happy with the outcome.

I also played around with some city-textures i created. In this one, i applied a texture i made (through lots of filters in gimp) from a picture of the medina of Marrakesh on the southeastern cities of the map.
I'm unsure about that: it looks pretty much how i like to have it, but i was struggling with the question, whether this (to work with pictures in general) is a "taboo" in the honorable art of mapmaking??? What are your thoughts on that ? My rationale was, that this map isn't a city-map, so the cities on it play just a minor role. Usually i love to "do it all by myself", but (till now) i couldn't imitate the organic feeling coming with the texture as it is now....

[Wingshaw]

I think the latest image is definitely an improvement, Abu Lafia.

I personally would make the deep parts of the ocean even darker (much much darker; nearly black), but if you are happy then leave it as it is.

I think what this map would really benefit from is some colour variation on the main landmass. The way I would do it is
--create a new layer (above your other colour layers),
--give the layer the following layer styles:
------colour overlay (set to 100% and choose, say, a pale green)
------set layer to multiply
--choose a brush (preferably a grungy brush, if you have one or can download one),
--set the opacity of the brush very low (~20-30%), and
--just paint over the mountains. At first, because the brush opacity is so low, you won't see much difference. Paint over again to make the 'pigment' thicker in some areas (say, the peaks of the mountains) and continue doing that until it starts looking right.
--The great thing about this method is that you can simply go to the colour overlay options, and change the colour whenever you want; you can also play around with layer opacity, and all kind of other settings.
*I do not know if GIMP has the same options as Photoshop, but I am assuming it has some close equivalent.

I would then repeat the above steps to add some variation to the desert areas, to the coasts; maybe some areas should look greener (eg near the coast, in the north), maybe some should look more yellow or brown.

THW

[Wingshaw]

The addition of green is a huge improvement. I think you could repeat the process to add some yellow to parts of the desert, and white/grey to the mountains, but really, it's up to you. This is already looking really good.

For the cities, I think your new pattern is also a big improvement on the old one, but one of the problems is that the settlements don't stand out very much. What if you gave them a white/sandy colour instead of the orange/brown/red?

Also, in my opinion, using pictures and textures is a part of mapmaking. You haven't broken any taboo; if anything, you are turning more into one of us.

THW

[Abu Lafia]

Hello everyone, here's a major-WIP update on Kharoun:
- I coloured the heightmap with a new color-palette, which i took from the sattelite image THW posted above from australia. After some foolin around with overlaying/hardlightning etc. something wonderful happend: I had Kharoun in front of me as i always wanted to have it (colorwise)... I'm curious what your opinon is on this... For me it's like suddenly the "empire of the red sands" lives up to it's name.

- before that i finished the cities and made up a new pattern, because the older one hadn't enough variety for the growing settelments
Thanks againTHW for your constant feedback and helpful tips. I thought the same about the color of the houses and came up with a more sandy-yellow tone.

-This Image comes without the labels/shields etc. just with the map "itself" and the border, because im thinking about reworking them somehow for the finishing of the map

[Wingshaw]

Well done, Abu Lafia! You've done a great job.

In my opinion, the orange is still a bit too strong, but you're happy with it, and that's the main thing. I'd be curious about those dark brown stains: they look like they might be dried lakes and inland seas, or particularly dangerous badlands.

THW

[Abu Lafia]

Here comes the (propably?) final WIP-Update.

- I reworked the legend. I wanted to fit it more to the darker ("rougher") style of the empire of Kharoun. So i decided to present it as a (chinese-inspired) war-banner. I learned a lot in gimp while making the wood-texture and iron-piece of the "frame" and giving it a 3d-ish look.
As stated above, my workflow (and documentation of it) is still pretty messy, so i won't write here to much in detail about the working-process of it (if someone's interessted i'll try to reconstruct it ofc, and happily share my knowledge ).

-I reworked the labelling of the cities, added outer-glow so they're more readable on the now darker background.

Thanks THW, for your encouraging words and the lot of experience and knowledge you shared!

Although i think the map is nearly finished now, i still like to hear the critique and thoughts from all of you on the map so far.

Have a nice weekend everybody!

[Mark Oliva]

Just saw this for the first time. Ausgezeichnet gut! Fantastic text to the right too.