March 2016 Challenge: Silver Hollow

[Tonnichiwa]

Nice, so far so good

[ChickPea]

It's starting to take shape and I like it. I wasn't entirely sure where you were going with this when you posted your first pic of the cavern background, but I like the direction it's going. The Lone Tower looks fantastic! It's so well done.

[Greg]

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone!

I've now finished the biggest of the buildings, the Red Palace, which has been tough to do but I'm pretty pleased with it. Anyway, here it is:
Red Palace.jpg

[Tonnichiwa]

That looks fantastic GLS! What program do you use to make these pictures? Or is it all drawn on paper?

[Greg]

I wish it were drawn on paper! I probably could do them on paper but I'd make lots of mistakes in the process and in fact I was originally going to draw them by hand and scan them in to colour, but in the end thought I'd make this map my first entirely digital one. I have to say I am missing the old pen and paper, so definitely will be drawing in real life for the next one.

I'm using a borrowed Wacom tablet and pen and an old copy of Photoshop CS2 (it would be very easy to use GIMP to do this to) to do them on, so I can erase my mistakes as I go. Also, it's good to have different layers to work on and then merge together afterwards, so when I'm colouring and doing finer details, if I want to erase something, it won't erase from the whole picture, just from the current selection. I've been drawing them a lot larger than they'll actually be so that I can put more detail in. Then once I'm finished and I've made it into a single layer, I export it to the overall map which I have open separately and scale it down to the size it needs to be.

Sorry that answers a bit more than you asked, but I thought you may be interested. If you want to know anything else just ask!

*Also thanks for kind words! I was pretty pleased with how it turned out*

[Tonnichiwa]

Not too much info at all. Thank you for answering my question. I know nothing about those kind of programs as I have only really done Profantasy software. I've been dying to make my own symbols of buildings for CC3 and CC+ but I can't draw so I'm stuck using other people's symbols

[Lingon]

The buildings look fantastic on their own, great job drawing them! But put together, I feel like the have a bit too much detail. The map becomes a bit cluttered, imo. A few stones and roof tiles here and there, to suggest form and texture without showing every single building block, works better… although that might just be me!

[Greg]

Cheers for the advice Lingon and the compliments. I think I can definitely see what you're saying, but in many ways this map grew larger than I anticipated and once I started the style I wanted to stick with it, as I just want to experiment with how things go. When I start properly piecing the final map together though, I plan to dilute some of these details somewhat and make things blend a bit more, but I guess we'll both have to wait and see to decide or not whether it works.

[Carnifex]

Looks reeeally good... I'd be very happy if you could succeed doing an undergrouund city (not just a city).

[ThomasR]

I have to say, I didn't knew where you were going with the first picture but the result is a really smart use of this picture. The blur gives the whole map an eerie feeling, I love it !