Reply With Quote
Glad to see you're still working on this! This administrative map is a nice addition to your background.
Been a month already ? Well at least I'm still working on it.
Here's the political map, showing the different Zhou of the Kingdom.
The equivalent in English would be state, probably. They are administrative divisions with different level of autonomy.
I will likely include this map (or a different version) with the original map.
All the names have a specific meaning depicting a characteristic of the area.
Since some names are simple, people can use the word Zhou to avoid confusion with other words. Example: Tangxia
Glad to see you're still working on this! This administrative map is a nice addition to your background.
I agree, glad to see that you're still going. I so want to see this one fully completed at some point.
I just think it's going to be good.
Artstation - | - Buy Me a Kofi
Thanks for all the good comments guys!
So, I've been working on this for a while and I would like your opinion on a couple of things.
25_Kingdom-in-the-clouds-v6 - Copie.png
1- The desert: I was not sure how to do it. There are sand dunes but they will probably not cover the whole desert areas. I'm still looking for a way to represent a dry area without using the sand dunes...
Anyway, for the part with sand, I'm not sure which of these is the best suited with the rest of the map (or if there is a better way to do it). Personally I like the one at the top right more but I was wondering if anyone had a better idea.
2- The farmland, I'm just experimenting for the moment. It looks pixelated and blurry at some place because I'm working with vectors.
3- The farm terrace: I think they are good but maybe they are too steep?
4- Not sure if it look odd but it's supposed to be a drier climate in altitude, so the trees are sparse and concentrated near the bottom of the valleys where there is plenty of water and the temperatures are warmer.
I also included the clouds even if I still don't know where I'm going to put them.
That's really impressive ! The level of detail that you're aiming to is border insane and it's wonderful !
1 - I guess you're right about the top right desert patch. The gaps between the dunes make it less crowded end more ... you know, desert ! There are two main types of desert : erg that is made of dunes and reg that's made of rocks. You could use both to break the monotony. The reg's gravels would be represented by dots arranged in lines like the desert drawn by Josiah in the northern part of his Hostargo piece. https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...light=hostargo
2 - The farmland works well but you might want to vary your shades of green.
3 - Hard to show the terraces at such a scale. You have to choose if you want realistic lines or if you want something symbolic. I'd go with something symbolic and make the slope less steep, showing two or three levels but spreading the zone a little bit (maybe double the extent).
4 - The spacing works but there's also a difference of species when you change the height. At a certain altitude, you tend to have evergreens and no deciduous. You could show the difference by drawing different trees. But I guess the density works well, especially with the elevated density along the river.
These are only suggestions and maybe not good ones but I hope it'll help you.
Again, I'm really impressed by what you did !
Really impressive work and details! I love what you did with forests and terraces. I think the dunes are really to numerous in your deserts, it should better with more spaces between them.
Wow you are going into some serious detail here, and it's turning out beautifully I think!
1. I think you could make the dunes significantly sparser and still have it read as dry. Honestly I think colour is the best way to convey dryness, but I don't think your style here is very open to that possibility, so perhaps consider some sort of sparse hardy plants and rock brush, or some sparse grass brushes?
2. I think the farmland looks great. Except for the greenness of it. Apparently I'm on a crusade against green this week.
3. Those didn't read as terraces to me, and they still don't really. They are not going to read that way without something to indicate depth, which can be done wither with lines indicating the drop or shadow. Not sure how well line indications would work at that scale though.
4. I really like that area.
An update. Only included is the part that I have worked on since the last time.
25_Kingdom-in-the-clouds-v7.png
- I haven't worked much on my dunes yet but I started working on another desert on the west coast. It's more of a rocky desert with some dunes maybe. I still need to apply a blur effect so it doesn't look so pixelated. It then turn into a savanna moving north and south. I'm still working on the colours, these are just temporary.
- I might add coniferous but only if I still got the motivation to modify the existing forests.
- The forests in the east are subject to change, I might move them more to the northeast, they were just placed a bit randomly.
- The plateau border might be too large? I also wonder if it would not be better to do something like Abu Lafia https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...2&d=1461974975
Regarding agriculture, I tried several patterns and I'm not too sure which one looks better. Unless someone has a better idea, so far, this is was I got:
farms.jpg
One thing that I'm sure is that I will have to use more colors. Perhaps a light colour in the background too.
As for the terraces, I think I will follow your advice and spread them more. It did looked nice with my first test. More on that later.
Honestly I think all those agriculture fields you have in that grid look fantastic, I'd probably avoid the empty one though since it lacks the same visual mass as the others. I think the plateau line looks great, fits with the mountain lines and therefore seems to be keeping in style with your terrain forms. I think doing something thiner might look odd. The dashed lines for the rocky desert also read very well to me. Keep in mind the darker you make something the wetter it will look (relative to surroundings). I think this whole map is coming out really great!
After some testing, this is what the farmlands look like.
farms2.png
Posting Permissions
