Reply With QuoteI'd love to help you out, arsheesh, but there's nothing to criticize! This looks awesome.
I don't have much time to work on this project right now, but here's a little bit of a progress update. I finished working on the canyons/chasm... at least for now, I'm not sure if I'm really satisfied with it. Also, I'm about two thirds of the way done with the sand dunes that make up the desert. If anyone has any constructive criticism I'm open to hearing them. Thanks.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
I'd love to help you out, arsheesh, but there's nothing to criticize! This looks awesome.
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
My finished maps | My deviantART gallery
My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
This map looks so beautiful already! I can't wait to see the end result
It looks so awesome that I would never have guessed you did it without a tablet. o_O When I tried to draw something using only a mouse I felt handicapped...
Oh, and everything looks perfect, except one thing: I want to see more!
Thank you Gidde and Lyandra. Well, progress is slow going these days, but I have made some. Here's the latest WIP.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
really crisp clean linework opn this with great shading/highlighting to complement it. subbed.
Wow, great coastline! I so love this map.
arsheesh, this map is awesome. I especially adore your coastlines, they are absolutely stunning!
Did you do this with GIMP (that's what I guess due to the links in your signature).
Could you explain the brush/pen settings you used to create this "crisp clean linework" (quoted vorropohaiha)? I played around a little bit with the pen settings in GIMP and Photoshop, but they are never as clean, contiguous yet full of contrast like the one you used.
I've been here -- as a silent viewer -- for a time now, but although I've seen many great maps, this one is one of the greatest! Perhaps it's the clean, crisp look, the subtle use of details, not to overwhelming. I really like that simple, yet great look.
@vorropohaiah & Lyandra, thanks guys!
@shihan, wow, that's a very large compliment, thank you very much. To answer your question, yes, the map thus far has been done completely in GIMP. the map I've uploaded is only at about 50% of the resolution of the original (the full size map was just to large of a file size to upload). I noticed that when I scaled the map to about 50% though that the line-work did appear much finer than at full resolution. So that's part of the trick. The other part was that when I did the shading and highlights for the mountains, hills, coasts etc. I zoomed in to about 200% and, using a small fuzzy brush set to low opacity (between 10-30%, depending on what I was working on), I began to slowly paint in the shadows and highlights (black for the former, white for the latter). Also, I as per the technique discussed in Torstan and DJ's tutorials, I set the Shadows/Highlights layer to "Overlay" and fiddled with the opacity till I got something I liked). The shadows and highlights for the forests were a bit more work. Here I wasn't just using an "overlay" method, I actually experimented with various hues of color and then used a custom sponge brush to lay in the color. Did that answer your question?
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
I have to say (a little late, I suppose) that I just found a new style to try out! This map is stunning, particularly the coastline. I'll have to keep an eye on this. Thank goodness the info you gave can be applied to PS.
Thanks Kestrel. This map kind of got put on the back-burner while other things in life came up, but once I've revamped my contribution to this month's Challenge map I hope to get back to it.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
