May/Jun '22 Lite Challenge: The North Crown

[Mimine]

Oh, I see now. That's why it looked odd. I thought you were going for a pure perspective look, but it is more a top down idea that is translating to perspective in the top left corner? At least that's what I'm getting. Anyhooo, good luck with the rest of the map!

It's more of a hybrid look, yes I've always liked hybrid maps haha

[Mimine]

Added villages of Lanaudière region (middle top) and cities of the south shore. I am NOT looking forward to drawing the two main cities, covering the entire two big islands on the river...

### Latest WIP ###

The North Crown WIP 5.jpg

[Bogie]

Developing really nicely!

[Mimine]

Finished drawing the cities, added the fields (there are fields everywhere here), added some color and shading. Will probably finish up tomorrow.

### Latest WIP ###

The North Crown WIP 6.jpg

[Redrobes]

Really liking the way this one is shaping up. My only suggestion is that it would help you if you worked on the map at a higher resolution - such as double. Then when you make WIPs and finals, take a copy of the high res one, slightly blur it, and drop down scale its pixel size in half. Then you would get cleaner lines through the benefit of anti-aliasing. All those jaggies on the lines would vanish and leave you with a cleaner look. Your text is done using a font which has this built in already so they look fine but all of the brush strokes have jagged edges and this simple technique will compensate for that and fix it for you.

Its a bit hard to show it once the image has been already drawn - it gives a better result if you draw it at double and then half the final. But here is an example as best as I could mock up.

[Mimine]

Really liking the way this one is shaping up. My only suggestion is that it would help you if you worked on the map at a higher resolution - such as double. Then when you make WIPs and finals, take a copy of the high res one, slightly blur it, and drop down scale its pixel size in half. Then you would get cleaner lines through the benefit of anti-aliasing. All those jaggies on the lines would vanish and leave you with a cleaner look. Your text is done using a font which has this built in already so they look fine but all of the brush strokes have jagged edges and this simple technique will compensate for that and fix it for you.

Its a bit hard to show it once the image has been already drawn - it gives a better result if you draw it at double and then half the final. But here is an example as best as I could mock up.

I understand what you mean, but I absolutely hate blurred lines... I'll try it but I'm not sure I'll like it though. So you would suggest I work in 1200 PPI? This is gigantic!

[Redrobes]

I think you can keep the edges pretty crisp and sharp when using this technique. It will provide results similar to what your seeing with your text / font work there.

Ignore the DPI number and just work exactly twice what you finally want to end up with. The DPI number depends more on what the final artwork is intended to do. If your planning to print it poster sized for viewing up close then you need a lot of DPI. As a guide only tho, 200-300 final is fine so find that pixel size and then double it when creating it then average your 2x2 and half it again for the final copy getting back to your 200 dpi or whatever you chose.

There is an option on most paint packages where you can average 2x2 pixels together so that when you scale half size its as though it was one pixel but correctly aliased.

But you have to like your own results and you have to enjoy the process of making the map. So if your happy with it then stick with what you like and enjoy the process. I only mentioned it because people would generally consider the jagged edges of lines a technical limitation of the raster process of paint apps, an unwanted aspect that the artist never intended.

[Mimine]

I think you can keep the edges pretty crisp and sharp when using this technique. It will provide results similar to what your seeing with your text / font work there.

Ignore the DPI number and just work exactly twice what you finally want to end up with. The DPI number depends more on what the final artwork is intended to do. If your planning to print it poster sized for viewing up close then you need a lot of DPI. As a guide only tho, 200-300 final is fine so find that pixel size and then double it when creating it then average your 2x2 and half it again for the final copy getting back to your 200 dpi or whatever you chose.

There is an option on most paint packages where you can average 2x2 pixels together so that when you scale half size its as though it was one pixel but correctly aliased.

But you have to like your own results and you have to enjoy the process of making the map. So if your happy with it then stick with what you like and enjoy the process. I only mentioned it because people would generally consider the jagged edges of lines a technical limitation of the raster process of paint apps, an unwanted aspect that the artist never intended.

I understand, thank you for the tip!

[Falconius]

I understand what you mean, but I absolutely hate blurred lines... I'll try it but I'm not sure I'll like it though. So you would suggest I work in 1200 PPI? This is gigantic!

I'm not sure what program you are using, but I imagine they all have similar features. Anyways, Clip Studio Paint has a layer filter under Blur that is called Smoothing, and that does a pretty good job without making things particularly blurry.

[Mimine]

I'm not sure what program you are using, but I imagine they all have similar features. Anyways, Clip Studio Paint has a layer filter under Blur that is called Smoothing, and that does a pretty good job without making things particularly blurry.

I use Photoshop 2020 ^^