February/March 2014 Lite Challenge: Story Mapping a Fairytale

[arsheesh]

Very fine job on the hand-drawn elements of this map! I think more work could be done with the coloring though. The color transitions (e.g. between the mountains and plains and between the sea shore and plains) seem a bit stark to me. I think this could be improved through blending and adding some more subtle shades. It also strikes me that the way in which you've displayed the roads doesn't quite fit with the hand-drawn style of the rest of the map. I would suggest that you hand draw the roads, either by drawing in dirt and rocks or coblestone and or simply by adding hand drawn patches off grass along the perimeter of the road. All in all the this is looking very nice.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[madcowchef]

Thanks for the suggestions. Yes the roads are going to get some lining as is the water. I don't have a great solution for the transitions between colors yet but definitely needs to happen to keep with the look, even if its just a more smudgy style of blending to keep with the style of light and shadow on the rest of the map. I'd love some idea if anyone has any. The cartoony details got away from me a bit as I originally was going to make the map mostly about funny labels and the like but the theme developed so I went with it. I still need to find a font I like too. One of those projects that keeps expanding exponentially.

[madcowchef]

Arsheesh clearly works for a company that produces medical devices related to carpal tunnel syndrome, which is to say I followed his advice and it looks good. Rather than blending the colors between terrain I went the opposite direction and lined it.

### LATEST WIP ###
Ex9StorymapV7.jpg

[madcowchef]

Labels are in (someday some font will look right to me but today is not that day). Now onto the map features.
Ex9StorymapV8.jpg

[Lyandra]

This map is truly amazing! Love the concept.

[arsheesh]

That looks much better. This is possibly one of the best Lite challenge entries I've seen. Kudos.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[madcowchef]

Thanks arsheesh. I feel I should post a preforum map to show how amazing the tutorials here are (which is to say how amazingly cool the people who took there own time to make them for us all are). From fugly to fantastic in 6 easy tuts. I'm 70% done with the map elements now, but I need to go back and fix the water lining and lessen the white around the text its distractingly bright.

[madcowchef]

First story mapped, now I just need to map the second one and make any final additions and adjust the levels and such. Anything on this seem distractingly out of place or bad?

### LATEST WIP ###
Ex9StorymapV10.jpg

[Ilanthar]

That works very well for me!

[arsheesh]

Wow! This is fabulous.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh