[WIP] Pashaîla - New software test with Affinity Designer

[Lyrillies]

Oooh fantastic! So you know it yourself, that's absolutely brilliant! And it's also a bit reassuring xD Most maps I've seen here so far all have an endless amount of the finest, tiniest, most beautiful details - and here I am with my rough lines and might-look-like-something-if-you-squint-your-eyes strokes... Oh well. Some day I'll figure it out.

Also thank you so much for the praise, that's so sweet of you! I'm really glad you like the colours so much.
(And I will always be happy to talk oil colours with you! Especially reds and yellows, although I'm a hug fan of indigo blue)

[jfrazierjr]

jfrazierjr:
I'm on an old mac laptop, and it needs some extra software (XQuartz) to run at all, and then it's basically started as a program inside a program, which means I don't have the menu bar where I'm used to having it, the controls are not the usual mac controls, etc etc. And it doesn't run very smoothly. It's slow, it lags, sometimes it even crashes. So it does work, but I have to change so much of my usual working style that it's just really no fun.

Old hardware will do it. I was on Ubuntu right before it changed menu style(Unity desktop) to always dock... I honestly tried to get used to that way of working, but could not deal with it and moved to Mint. It drives me crazy the occasional time I have to work on my wife's Macbook. Most of the time, I have an application up filling 1/4 of the screen, but have to move my mouse all the way up to the top left to get to am menu item. I did however change my Mint setup to have the window icons on the left as Mac does and I miss this when I am at work on a Windows machine.

[Mouse]

Oooh fantastic! So you know it yourself, that's absolutely brilliant! And it's also a bit reassuring xD Most maps I've seen here so far all have an endless amount of the finest, tiniest, most beautiful details - and here I am with my rough lines and might-look-like-something-if-you-squint-your-eyes strokes... Oh well. Some day I'll figure it out.

Also thank you so much for the praise, that's so sweet of you! I'm really glad you like the colours so much.
(And I will always be happy to talk oil colours with you! Especially reds and yellows, although I'm a hug fan of indigo blue)

I love all colours... with the possible exception of cerise (but you don't get a lot of that in an oil painting)

Details are something that were new to me, but I use CC3, which has a FastCAD engine, so infinite detail is the name of the game! LOL! Details, however, don't mean you can forget the colours, and you are lucky enough to have a head start on anyone without the oil painting experience

[Lyrillies]

Old hardware will do it. I was on Ubuntu right before it changed menu style(Unity desktop) to always dock... I honestly tried to get used to that way of working, but could not deal with it and moved to Mint. It drives me crazy the occasional time I have to work on my wife's Macbook. Most of the time, I have an application up filling 1/4 of the screen, but have to move my mouse all the way up to the top left to get to am menu item. I did however change my Mint setup to have the window icons on the left as Mac does and I miss this when I am at work on a Windows machine.

Ah well yes, old hardware... My lovely old hardware just crashed. Luckily just after I was done saving my progress. Anyway, I never used any version of Linux, but it does sound rather annoying having to switch all the time like that. I know there's lots of discussion about which OS is best... I think as long as everyone's happy with their choice, it's all good.

I love all colours... with the possible exception of cerise (but you don't get a lot of that in an oil painting)

Details are something that were new to me, but I use CC3, which has a FastCAD engine, so infinite detail is the name of the game! LOL! Details, however, don't mean you can forget the colours, and you are lucky enough to have a head start on anyone without the oil painting experience

Can't say I love all colours the same I definitely have favorites. But all oil colour is better than other types of color. It's just the best <3

As for colours in this map - I'm really glad you like them so much. They did turn out quite nice in the first try. Now that I started redoing the map in a higher resolution it all looks a bit different. I'm not nearly as happy with the mountains. I'll have to redo them completely tomorrow, they can't stay like this. But I think you'll still be able to see them better now.
There's quite a bit of stuff that didn't work as well as with the first version... But maybe I'm just too tired now so my sense for details is not as reliable anymore as it was this morning. Anyway. Will have a lot of stuff to change and do about this second version tomorrow. For now: Good night to you

pashail3.jpg

[Mouse]

Yes, I do that too.

Nothing ever seems to go right the second try, but if you keep working (when you've had a night's break) it will soon improve.

I shall look forward to hearing all about it tomorrow, or the day after maybe

Maps are like paintings, with respect to the fact that what might seem to be terrible/excellent late at night, will look completely different either in the mirror, or in the morning.

Sleep well

[Lyrillies]

Alright then. After some rest and a good think I have continued with my map/software test and learned quite a lot.

For example, I can basically draw a river as a shape and cut it out from the original land shape, it's quite similar to PS actually. The reason it didn't work in the beginning was that my basic land shape was not a vector object, and the subtract operation only works between two (or more!) vector objects. But once you know that (and also how to convert simple lines to vector objects) it's pretty simple and works well.

I also tweaked my process of creating mountauns a bit and I'm much happier with the result now. Hopefully I can remember how to do it in the future.

Hmm what else might be interesting? Ah yes, for the rivers: I gave the entire land shape a light blue outline which is basically invisible against the ocean, but makes the rivers stand out a bit. Of course, with the way I use colours here, a simple light blue line looks rather weird. But AD has a handy feature for that: it allows me to add noise to contours! Which made all the difference with my rivers... But look for yourself.

Anyhow, so far I love Affinity. It's fantastic, it's simple to use, it's really easy to switch over to coming from PS, and it offers a lot of options. I'm lacking nothing so far. Already I can say it's definitely worth its price and I'm happy I bought it.

pashaila5.jpg

[Mouse]

Looking pretty good, Lyrillies

Its nice knowing that there is a potential alternative to PS that's not as complicated and weird as GIMP (which I'm still having a great deal of trouble with for myself) - and one that I might be able to afford in a couple of months time. Thanks for commenting on the performance of the software, as well as the map

[jfrazierjr]

weird as GIMP (which I'm still having a great deal of trouble with for myself) - and one that I might be able to afford in a couple of months time. Thanks for commenting on the performance of the software, as well as the map

Start a thread or PM if you have questions on GIMP in the How do I forum or make a new map specifically in GIMP and asking for help in the relevant WIP thread. This is one of the risks of moving from one software to another(I had the same issue years ago) in having to unlearn some bad habits that caused me extra work in the long run(ie, learning to work smart vs working hard... )

[Mouse]

Thanks jfrazierjr

I always do things the hard way! LOL! Probably caused by my inability to read manuals for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Too many floaters. I've been watching lots of YouTube stuff, though, and I'm a lot better than I was a couple of weeks ago. I just have this feeling that Affinity might be a better option for me, since I've been using Corel for 20 years. I just can't afford their stuff any more, and Affinity is a whole lot cheaper.

[Lyrillies]

Well I do hope I can help a bit Mouse, just giving you a glimpse of the software... I'm not any kind of pro-graphics software user though, I just scribble some stuff from time to time and hope it looks ok. If you use the software for advanced stuff you might have to ask others for their opinion

As for the map: I decided that for now it should just be a decorative map, instead of a really useful one. More like the kind of stuff people put on walls because it looks nice. So there's probably a few mistakes in there (like the scale border, for example) but oh well.

Anyway, here's what I have at the moment. The boxes on the right will be filled with the flags of the territories, and of course the nonsense text on the bottom will be replaced with actual info. Now, I know all that stuff usually comes after finishing the actual map part of a map - but I kinda don't know how to continue there. Maybe an actual scale would be nice. Maybe a printer's logo or something? And yes yes, LABELLING the map. But I suck at labelling, i never get it right, despite reading several tutorials. Labelling on my maps always looks horrible. So i guess I'm trying to avoid it and do other stuff instead xD
Also, I'm wondering if I should widen the rivers a bit, they're almost invisible like this.

### Latest WIP ###
Pashaila_rightsize_rivers_decorations.jpg

By the way, if you see anything tat could be improved, details that don't make sense to experienced cartographers, or just whatever, please let me know so I can improve my general map-making.

As for the software: Any form of working with objects in affinity is simply brilliant. The boxes for example - aligning them perfectly is so incredibly easy with affinity, it's really fun to work with. A professional comic artists told me that he doesn't believe there is any alternative to Photoshop, and maybe for pros that's true, but I'm more than happy right now.