WIP : Haerlech

[Sapiento]

Impressive.

[J.Edward]

Larb - Oh yes... when can I sleep?
THW - Thanks. Both maps will be included. I am working on them separately and Haerlech 492 was mostly done already so progress was mainly on Haerlech 864 at this point.
Once they're both at a good point I'll bring them together and work on all the names and borders stuff.
It does seem like cities are getting some love right now.
Thank you Sap.

[J.Edward]

I've been busy with work so this has taken a back seat. More shadow work on ground areas.
I just saw some roof shadows I'm going to have to fix tomorrow. If I'm lucky the shadow work will be done by tomorrow night.
I love doing cities but working on 3 at the same time is a bit much. Time for the sleeping now.
Haerlech 02d_update3.jpg

[arsheesh]

Looking fantastic! Shading looks great.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Ilanthar]

By Arsheesh
Shading looks great.

I second that! The final map gonna be awesome.

[J.Edward]

Thanks Arsheesh and Ilanthar. I got most of the main shadows done and started on the roof colors.
I was trying to get a good amount of variation in there but it may be too much. Any thoughts on that would be great.
Getting closer but still a lot left to do. I may get more done this weekend if time permits.
Haerlech 02eupdate1.jpg

[SteffenBrand]

Wow, this is pretty impressive, J.Edward! I like your attention to even small details, the thought behind the organic layout of the city and everything else!
What program do you use for this? I'd guess Photoshop if not 3D, but it is really a lot of work to do manually... oO

If you want more randomness, try to use a ruin, a building in construction (with cranes or something), muddy areas near the river, a slum with crude wooden roofs, etc. This looks very clean otherwise, but maybe this is exactly what you are trying to achieve. I'd also reduce the brightness of the roofs, this is really too random IMO. =)

[J.Edward]

Thanks Steffen. I was thinking it was more colors than looked right. Yep, all done in PS. And yes, it is a lot to do manually.

Those are all excellent ideas. There should be some ruins, just not sure where I would want to put them. At this scale I'm not sure if the 'in construction' would show well but I like that. With rivers, it usually depends on what I am thinking the land is like near the river. I should use that with another city I'm working on though.
In this particular city a slum would not be indicated. I did do some slums in another city map I'm working on but it's a much different style of map.
The original walled town had a certain set of roof colors. I wanted the outer city to looked different as it was built by foreign rulers/invaders/new people.
I had thought they might be getting different materials for roof tiles. Maybe something a bit more uniform would look more like that effect.

Any other opinions on roof color... I'll be finishing those this weekend if I can and making changes to color as well.
Again, thanks Steffen.

edit - I just got what you meant about clean. Yes, I do need more small elements in there. I am going to be adding stuff on the docks, boats [I have to make some placeable boat elements first], maybe getting some trees in there. Other stuff if it occurs to me. Though I really do want to get this finished... now I'm just adding more work.

[SteffenBrand]

Hahaha, I know the problem. I'd love to post my last work I made (which kind of had the same problem) but unfortunately I'm not allowed yet. Also, kudos to the work you put in there, I'd love to see the final result! If I could, I'd throw rep at you already

[J.Edward]

Steffen - when do you think you'll be able to show your last work? Do you have to wait till something is published and out?

Since earlier today, I have messed around with some other colors for the roofs but I'm not liking that either.
I may have to start over on the colors. The original town had some fairly colorful roofs and it looked okay. But once you get a whole city like that it looks off.
Well, I'll keep plugging away at it.