Elyden map

[vorropohaiah]

I'd curve/angle them with the terrain. It ends up looking more natural.

I'm trying out orienting the text with the 'horizontal' graticules - not really traditional though i thought I'd try it out. I don't mind the results and think its' a bit more characterful than plain horizontal, though I'm still experimenting (same with the font itself. I tried Castellar and Imprint MT Shadow, which i thought looked cartographical, but decided against them in the end). suggestions are welcome




Here's a new iteration of the map. I discarded the coastline I had generated through the projection generator and repalced it with the original one and then painstakingly went through the graticules one-by-one, stretching them out and placing them on the equirectangluar base map (I'm sure there's another generator somewhere tpo do that but ah well...).

I normally like to come up with nations' histories before plotting cities/capitals/features in the map, though that was taking too long (each region was winding up with a 10,000+ word-history which was taking too long - I'm getting impatient to get the map done - i can always update it once I amend regional histories :p I finally settled on a border design, and once the 'boring' part of adding all the fiddly regions and text is done i can start with the fun stuff - colouring it in, adding texture and grunge effects (though I'm not sure i want it being too colourful,and I'll probably settle for something more 'realistic - 18th century-esque. we'll see

the attachment is a bit more detailed than the embedded pic, though i had to resize if from 300 dpi down to 72, so its lost a lot of detail

[Lyandra]

Great work on the latest version of your map, I like the new orientation of the text, it looks good to me.
I should have known that you had whole histories of the nations you were mapping in your head! Hope you will share them too. Anyway, I'm glad that you decided to fill in the blanks later, the map is worth seeing.

[vorropohaiah]

to show that im still working on this... a snap of some quick mountain/tree sketches to try and figure out a style im happy with. I'll keep on trying...

note the dead trees; horsetails (those crappy oddly stacked-umbrella-like-things under the trees) and the mesas... Elyden is a dying and harsh world so im trying to convey that with these. im also thinking of making the map look more hand-drawn and as such have applied brush spatter effects to most lines and will probably be overpainting the land outline and rivers too. ill probably draw up a few A4 sheets of mountains, trees and other features and scan those for use as brushes on the map.

Im not sure whether or not to keep this sketchy look ar to at least try and refine them a bit (maybe with a fine liner pen?)
C&C please!


Edit, added another WIP pic

[Lyandra]

I really like those mountains! The mesas and dead trees look fine too. I think one usually has to mess with the style a little till he finds something he is really satisfied with. That's at least how it is usually with me. Takes trial and error till I get something I really like.

[arsheesh]

Very nice! I like the sketchy look.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[vorropohaiah]

I really like those mountains! The mesas and dead trees look fine too.

Very nice! I like the sketchy look.

thanks. so, i finished off the first A4 page and went over the pencil work with subtle rapidoliner pens (0.2, 0.5 and 2mm sizes) and have started work on the next, which will be odder shapes and mesas and buttes etc to sprinkle around certain areas. im also trying to figure out how best to place the maps on the page - and will probably settle on a darken blend mode with another layer underneath where ill apply some highlighs.

I've attached the jpg if anyones interested in using them (they can easily be cropped and used as brushes)

[Chashio]

Wow. This whole project, wow. =) Reps your way.

I'm interested to see how you incorporate your mountains and trees on the maps. I have trouble with forests.

One nitpick: The labels in the lower right corner (Molachari Desert, etc) seem too stretched horizontally, too flat vertically, and/or too warped for the space, which is more broad and empty.

[vorropohaiah]

I'm interested to see how you incorporate your mountains and trees on the maps. I have trouble with forests.

I know what you mean. i hate trees and have trouble making forests look convincing, though ill likely go for a bevel/emboss pattern lightly painted over forested regions. luckily (for me and not the inhabitants) its a dying world so there are only 2 large forested regions with a more relatively tiny wooded regions scattered throughout.

One nitpick: The labels in the lower right corner (Molachari Desert, etc) seem too stretched horizontally, too flat vertically, and/or too warped for the space, which is more broad and empty.

yeah that was part of my attemps at making the word stretch across the region. ill likely add more spaces between the 2 words in an attempt to keep the stretch more manageable and will likely tone down on the bendiness of the words.

thanks

[Hai-Etlik]

yeah that was part of my attemps at making the word stretch across the region. ill likely add more spaces between the 2 words in an attempt to keep the stretch more manageable and will likely tone down on the bendiness of the words

Try increasing the spacing between all the letters rather than just the words, and don't just press space, use the proper spacing controls if you want it to look good and be easy to manage. If your software doesn't support that, try using Inkscape to make your labels. It's fairly simple to load up an image, position your labels over top, hide the base image, and export the labels as an image you can load up in your raster editor. This map uses a lot of spacing control and was done in Inkscape: http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...chmentid=39598

[vorropohaiah]

Try increasing the spacing between all the letters rather than just the words, and don't just press space, use the proper spacing controls if you want it to look good and be easy to manage. If your software doesn't support that, try using Inkscape to make your labels. It's fairly simple to load up an image, position your labels over top, hide the base image, and export the labels as an image you can load up in your raster editor. This map uses a lot of spacing control and was done in Inkscape: http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...chmentid=39598

I'm using PS and, depending on the text, use a horizontal scale of 100% (default) to 350% (which stretches text as well as spacing, and a kerning of 0 (normal) to 200, the latter of which is used on those large areas where I want to stretch the word to fill out as much of it as possible; though generally I only apply horizontal scale to larger areas where I want to stretch the text to fill the available space.

how would you recommend labelling large areas otherwise?