Fantasy RPG Town Map

[ravells]

Looking really good, Turganev. I really like the colour set you've used (apart from the river which looks a little too bright, as Torstan said). My only small crits are the building distribution and and size are very uniform. the wiggly roads are really nice tho.

[Turgenev]

Here's the latest attempt. I've replaced the bridges with the wooden plank/stone frame bridge pic that I created and I also added an extra bridge. I have also replaced the water but I'm not 100% satisfied with it. I'm going to think that one over for a bit and see what I can come up with. Any water tips would greatly be appreciated.

[torstan]

That's a big improvement with the bridges. If you are feeling keen - looks like it so far! - it might be worth putting a feature in the town wall where it crosses the river too. It would be unlikely for the builders to have built that across as a diagonal. I know - I'm picking nits.

As for the water texture the first point is that it is too large - try reducing the scale by 50%.

It can also be worth having one layer for the colkour of the water and another for the highlights - the light on the surface. On your colour layer try a darkish blue in the middle of the river lightening to a mid blue at the edge. Then have a layer over the top with the river texture set to soft or hard light, and play with the opacity. You can get some good results by tweaking the curves on the texture layer so that the texture is much harder with clean edges on the light areas. Water tends to reflect very sharp highlights. Hopefully those will give you a fun hour or two's experimentation. Looking forward to seeing the results!

[Steel General]

It might even be worth a try to make the river a solid color than go over it with small, low opacity airbrush of a lighter color then use the 'smudge' tool (or whatever the GIMP equivalent is) to show the direction the water is traveling.

This worked out pretty well with the aqueduct on my Seagaard map.

[ravells]

I hope you don't mind, Turgenev, but I took your map and had a play with the river (using photoshop). I used a reasonably desaturated blue, gave it a small amount of noise which I reduced the opacity to, bevelled inwards (to make the river banks) and gave it a gradient fill (which emphasises the banks a little more and adds a nice variation of contrast to the river over its whole length) and satin overlay (gives it dark and light bands so it looks a little like a sky reflection). I think it looks OK this way.

[Gandwarf]

Yep, the bridges are a great improvement.

The larger forests reverted back to their original state, though?

[Ascension]

I always add in a sandy brown river bank as an outer glow or gradient stroke (set to shape burst in PS). Lastly, the bridges are a bit orange, maybe make em more tan-brown. Minor nits on my part, I know, so please disregard if ya feel like it Lookin swell overall tho so keep on truckin.

[Turgenev]

Thanks everyone for the wonderful tips! I've taken everything into account and here's my latest attempt...

[Ascension]

Dayum, that's lookin goood (with a bunch more O's)! Nice job man. I tried to bonk thee but, alas, your THACO warded me off so I have to spread some love.

[Turgenev]

Thanks for the compliment, Ascension. As you can see, I removed the part of the castle wall that was going over the river. I figured it would prevent any potential use of the river (especially now since the walls are mainly historical and not really up to standards for defensive purposes). I'll probably post the Greyhawk version in the Finished Maps section of the Gallery once I finish detailing the Legend for the various buildings.

I think I'm done with this map for the time being. I need a break from it and besides, I want to start writing it up for my AD&D campaign. I really do appreciate all the help from everyone and I have repped those that I could (a few of you I couldn't until I spread the love around a bit more - I have already repped you recently ).