How do you come up with your continent-shapes or regional-shapes?

[Meshon]

I have made a couple of pretty satisfying maps using a vector map of the world (like, the Earth world). I found one somewhere that had each country as a separate shape so I opened it in Illustrator and just starting moving stuff around, overlapping and inverting. The only problem with this method is that some savvy observer may say, "Hey, this Pirate Kingdom is totally the south coast of France!"

cheers,
Meshon

[AtmoGuy]

One way to avoid recognizable coastlines when using real-life maps is to overlay one on top of another, and where the coastlines intersect randomly choose which one to follow. That way your "fictional" coast includes random features from two different real world ones.

[Eilathen]

Cool, i didn't visit this thread for a while...some activity in it during that time ^^

Thanks guys, some interesting ideas. Will have to experiment with them.
I started to just not being that picky anymore In other words, i handdraw something and then just go with it. Maybe revising some parts etc. etc. . It is hard at the moment (damn my perfectionism ... lol) but i guess, as said in another thread, if i try often enough, some day i will hit a perfect shape

[WillP]

I was on my deck a couple of days ago looking at clouds pass by, and I realized they would be the perfect template for continent shapes. Didn't have my camera with me to snap a picture.

[lostatsea]

Interesting inspiration comes from all around . I either slop a bunch of digital paint on the screen then cut into it with the eraser tool using some cutters made from cloud brushes. Varying the size / orientation / brush keep picking at it till you are satisfied. Alternately if you don't have something specific in mind let nature do the hard work. Use spills paint splashes / peeling paint broken rock patterns or my personal favorites CLOUDS !

From this To This
Basic cloud4.jpg landform.jpg

[Korash]

Very Nice oh Lost one.

Which progs and techniques did you use?

[Scot Harvest]

Freaking Genius!!!

Interesting inspiration comes from all around . I either slop a bunch of digital paint on the screen then cut into it with the eraser tool using some cutters made from cloud brushes. Varying the size / orientation / brush keep picking at it till you are satisfied. Alternately if you don't have something specific in mind let nature do the hard work. Use spills paint splashes / peeling paint broken rock patterns or my personal favorites CLOUDS !

From this To This
Basic cloud4.jpg landform.jpg

[jbgibson]

During and after our start-with-clouds competition I spent weeks snapping pictures of the sky. I now have a collection such that I'll never have to use a program's "generate clouds" for randomness :-).

[lostatsea]

OH where were you guys last July when I needed the Votes !! Ha Ha. I will be revisiting the "City state of Etheria " In the near future . (Hopefully) I didn't have time to do it justice for the challenge. Too much new techniques to learn and not enough time. It has way too much potential to let fade into obscurity !

I used Photoshop to adjust the contrast and convert to grey-scale PNG. I also used the magic wand tool set at increasing tolerances to create elevation masks to use in Wilber. I opened the greyscale in Wilber as a greyscale surface. I used the masks to to elevate the different areas using mathematical -offset. Then I ran Erosion-Precipiton filter to taste (Don't remember how many scans) to roughen it up. Saved it as a PNg. Took it once again to photoshop . Ran the lighting filter to add shadowing , to make it pop some more. Word of warning Wilber is a chunk to chew on. I stayed only to the above mentioned filters. Waldronate is the goto guy for Wilber seeing as how he created it ! Any how that was the basics. I thought seeing as how the cloud photo already had so much texture I had to use it as a bump atleast instead of just a shape. But just using it for shape gives one more leeway if you have something specific in mind !

[vorropohaiah]

that cloud map is great!