Silembria

[jfrazierjr]

The river was supposed to be natural in my original thought, so it is now gone
I'm uploading the revised map (with some additions as roads and communities)

With that said the map is finished on my part

Still, I would really like to hear your suggestions on the river-tapering in Inkscape RobA, since the map is the start of a D&D-campagin I intend to create and Silembria will have neighboring realms

Very nice Kurvstol! I have a couple comments.

* In the forests on the left (mainly) there is a section at the top that is very fuzzy and then in the middle gets more sharp lines as it goes down. Was this intended? If not, you may want to try to make all the forests bits more uniform. From what I see, that area seems to indicate deeper forests due to the number of lines compared to there sections of forests on the map, so you may indeed be trying something specific there.

* The two rivers on the right have a hard line where the river color meets the ocean, while the one on the left blends into the underlying white very nicely and makes it looks like the river is carved into the land mass. I know alot of this is due to the underlying parchment background, so you may want to try to smudge the area around the river mouths carefully. or erase some of the background layer around the mouths.

* If you feel like spending the time, you may want to try using the smudge tool on the mountains a bit. The ones at the top have a nice bland to them and the lines get sharper the closer you get to the bottom. Also, some of your larger mountains might be made better with a few very thin white lines carefully blended (again, using the smudge tool) into the shadow sides) Now, this may be what you are after, and if so, ignore this. Heck, ignore the whole post if you want since this is just an opinion.

With that said, for me, the river mouths is the only thing I would really suggest changing if nothing else.

Joe

[Kurvstol]

Thanks for the comments Joe

I agree on the forest and the river-issue. Unfortunately I've been somewhat sloppy regarding saving the map layers so it will be to much tideous work to fix this

The last tip/comment will most likely be tested and integrated in my future maps

[jfrazierjr]

Thanks for the comments Joe

I agree on the forest and the river-issue. Unfortunately I've been somewhat sloppy regarding saving the map layers so it will be to much tideous work to fix this

*sigh* I know how you feel. In many of my "play maps" I have been pretty darn loose with layer management and then got screwed when I wanted to tweak something later. Thanks a ton goes to RobA who built a quick script for GIMP that will duplicate a layer, make the original invisible, and move the old layer to the bottom. That way, I have a quick way to get back to the "source" layer in case I do stupid stuff.

The last tip/comment will most likely be tested and integrated in my future maps

Umm,, which comment was that?

[Kurvstol]

Ah! the tip considering smudge-tech on the mountains:

* If you feel like spending the time, you may want to try using the smudge tool on the mountains a bit. The ones at the top have a nice bland to them and the lines get sharper the closer you get to the bottom. Also, some of your larger mountains might be made better with a few very thin white lines carefully blended (again, using the smudge tool) into the shadow sides)

Will test that in my next map containing mountains

[jfrazierjr]

Ah! the tip considering smudge-tech on the mountains:



Will test that in my next map containing mountains

Ah yea... I can't take credit for it though. If you want to see more and get some good instructions, go to the Featured Maps and find the Manthria map here:http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=499 by Sir Alain.

And here is a direct link to his tutorial. Note that his tutorial assumes (instructs) you to do this in B/W, but the process can be used in any event in color, you just have be a bit more careful. http://www.santharia.com/workshop/maps_1.htm Page 6 is where he does the mountains.

I played with it and now the smudge tool is my new favorite toy! I seem to be trying to do do everything with it now.... What I did the first time I was playing with this was to smudge the original mountain lines. While this looked ok, I was a bit sloppy and some of the hard lines were blurred when they should not have been (ie, the mountain shape). After a second play, what I did was to do my upside down 'V's on their own layer, with NOTHING else. Duplicate and add the various shading colors and smudge and then move the original back over top to get my hard line back in case I messed up the working layer. VERY NICE technique. If anyone's interested, I will post up a few different types of samples from what I played with.


Joe

Joe

[Midgardsormr]

If anyone's interested, I will post up a few different types of samples from what I played with.

I'm interested! Manthria is one of my favourites, too, and any variations and commentary on that style are quite welcome.

[jfrazierjr]

I'm interested! Manthria is one of my favourites, too, and any variations and commentary on that style are quite welcome.

Here are a few examples of the same mountains with different backgrounds. One is a png so you can get the transparency, the others are just jpg to keep the file size down a bit.

I also played around several weeks ago with more of a "craggy" random line mountains with lots of hooks and crags and stuff, but that was much more of a 90 degree from the side view. I loved the look, but don't really have something I can use and unfortunately, I did not save my samples.

While I think the results are great, this is not something where you would want to do 100s of mountains manually. This would KILL your wrist unless you have enough patience to do a few and the come back later and repeat this process(which I just don't have). If I was to want make a large number of mountains for a map of this type, I would probably figure out how to make 5-10 base template brushes or something like that in GIMP and carefully brush them into a picture with alternating brushes. This is also exactly what the creator of the Manthria map suggests also. Hmmm.... anyone know if GIMP has a way to create a "brush set" and have it alternate between the various brushes as you stroke on the map? I assume the answer is no, but it never hurts to ask eh...

Start to finish, this took me around 30-40 minutes or so to build up the mountains and then blend in with the smudge tool before I saved the results. Hope you enjoy.

Joe

[Kurvstol]

Decided to post a black and white version of the map

Please tell me which version you think looks the best

[RobA]

anyone know if GIMP has a way to create a "brush set" and have it alternate between the various brushes as you stroke on the map? I assume the answer is no, but it never hurts to ask eh...

Actually, Yes.

It is called an image pipe, or tube, or hose, or animated brush. (The file extension is .GIH for "Gimp Image Hose")

The easiest way (in this case) is to make each image its own layer. Set them all to visible, then save the file as whatever.gih to you brushes folder. The save options can be confusing, but there is a good (if old) reference here. Refresh the brush list and you can use it.

If the image is colour with alpha, it will only paint in colour (like the ivy brush that comes with Gimp). If it is B&W, then it will use the foreground colour, with the greyscale level being the transparency.

If you make up such a brush please post it in the resource section!

-Rob A>

[jfrazierjr]

Actually, Yes.

It is called an image pipe, or tube, or hose, or animated brush. (The file extension is .GIH for "Gimp Image Hose")

The easiest way (in this case) is to make each image its own layer. Set them all to visible, then save the file as whatever.gih to you brushes folder. The save options can be confusing, but there is a good (if old) reference here. Refresh the brush list and you can use it.

If the image is colour with alpha, it will only paint in colour (like the ivy brush that comes with Gimp). If it is B&W, then it will use the foreground colour, with the greyscale level being the transparency.

If you make up such a brush please post it in the resource section!

-Rob A>

Might get around to that in the future. I realized AFTER I posted the above (figured out how to make a regular brush) that since I had alpha on the brush, when I painted some of the lines intersected from one brush to another and it looked rather bad. What I will probably do is create 4-5 mountain templates as bases, make copies of those with a few different color schemes (light brown, gray, dark brown, etc) and then save as a big pill of brushes grouped by the "background color".

What does everyone think of the actual mountains themselves though? I tried to make the "dark" side have enough variation and with the smudges, I think it looks very nice. I also smudged the "V"s just a bit, especially at the bottoms to try to get them to blend into whatever is underneath instead of just being a solid black end to a line.

Joe