[WIP] The 6 realms - private fantasy map commission

[Cat]

Really like this one. And thanks for the details on making the mountains. *cheers*

[Warlin]

I am impressed by the speed and quality of the work provided. I hope to have the will and the patience to acquire only the half of your talent. Your clients have a sacred opportunity you have you. Congrats. Rep for sharing this with us.

[ChickPea]

This is amazing! I'm drinking this in!!

Hadn't considered doing light and shadow with the same colour. I've always used dark and light colours in separate layers in Overlay mode, but now I'm dying to give this a try.

I've always loved how you shade your forests. I think they look fantastic. My own attempts at doing something similar have usually failed miserably!

Thanks for sharing, Max. This is great stuff.

[whipstache]

Such fantastic work. Thanks for a glimpse into your process.

[Meshon]

Max, thanks for taking the time to give descriptions of the work you're doing. I have a question about blending modes; I recently had to flatten a bunch of maps while keeping the lables and grids on separate layers. I found some challenges getting layers with varied opacity and blending modes to look right after squishing them. Is this ever an issue you've run into?

And you've already given lots of your time here, I don't expect any sort of detailed answer. I'm just really appreciating the development of this map.

Cheers,
Meshon

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[J.Edward]

Max, thanks for taking the time to give descriptions of the work you're doing. I have a question about blending modes; I recently had to flatten a bunch of maps while keeping the lables and grids on separate layers. I found some challenges getting layers with varied opacity and blending modes to look right after squishing them. Is this ever an issue you've run into?

And you've already given lots of your time here, I don't expect any sort of detailed answer. I'm just really appreciating the development of this map.

Cheers,
Meshon

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

I have had similar issues with certain layer attributes and opacities when merging or flattening.
If you're needing to do that, hide all layers that won't be flattened and save the image as tiff file.
Then save the psd as a new version, delete the layers you would have flattened and then bring in the tiff as a new layer.
It should retain all of the features. I've had to do this before with very large files when labeling started.

[arsheesh]

This is coming along beautifully Max! I love your style.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Caenwyr]

I use a different, non-lossy approach. As soon as a file gets too big, I export whole sets of layers to different files: a labeling file, a water bodies file, a frame-and-sidebar file etc. For the final image I simply re-import flattened versions of those subfiles, play with the layer settings a bit and hit save. Works great!

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[- Max -]

Thanks everyone for the support and the comments, I almost forgot the extra motivation it could bring while drawing a map

I love watching along as you go through all the steps. Thanks for sharing, and taking the time!
Can't wait for the next update.

EDIT : here we go

New update with some work on terrain details :

The 6 Realms webWIP8.jpg

Max, thanks for taking the time to give descriptions of the work you're doing. I have a question about blending modes; I recently had to flatten a bunch of maps while keeping the lables and grids on separate layers. I found some challenges getting layers with varied opacity and blending modes to look right after squishing them. Is this ever an issue you've run into?

And you've already given lots of your time here, I don't expect any sort of detailed answer. I'm just really appreciating the development of this map.

Cheers,
Meshon

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

What J. said. Different blending modes and different opacity layers hate merging You can either follow the J. path (which is pretty much mine when I have to do this) or hide all layers that don't need to be merged, alt+shift+C, that basically copy a merged image of what you see on screen, paste into a new layer behind your other layers. Problem solved. It's easier to manage if your layers/groups are well organized This said, I'm trying to avoid as much as possible to merge layers, I prefer keeping all of them in case I need to edit some stuff. It's been a while I didn't flatten stuff in my maps if I recall good.

This is amazing! I'm drinking this in!!

Hadn't considered doing light and shadow with the same colour. I've always used dark and light colours in separate layers in Overlay mode, but now I'm dying to give this a try.

I've always loved how you shade your forests. I think they look fantastic. My own attempts at doing something similar have usually failed miserably!

Thanks for sharing, Max. This is great stuff.

CHickpea, the forest coloring is basically following the same process than the mountains, though it's absolutely a fake and unnaturally shading. Actually I want to give some sense of depth rather than a natural and realistic lightning/shading work on them

This is awesome Max. I really enjoy following your progress on this (waited for new updates on your Workshop for ages!). The best part about this I think is how you handle the large landmass and ocean, nothing feels uniform or plain

Don't know if you are looking for feedback, but I think there is a slight perspective issue there at the bottom right, where the water meets the canyon.

Keep up the great work!

Cheers,
Tainotim

You're right about it. I slightly changed it, it's probably not perfect but to be honest it doesn't bother me that much. Since the map isn't a real perspective or isometric map, but a flat map where perspective is used to emphasize stuff, it's less worrying Annnnd you're also right about the workshop, I haven't updated it in ages, I really wish I'd have more time to make some WIPs or show some current works, tips and such but you know, life, work...Hopefully, I'll be able to do more in the future * take a look at his working schedule....Shakes head and sweat....*

[Blaidd Drwg]

I love watching along as you go through all the steps. Thanks for sharing, and taking the time!
Can't wait for the next update.