World Map WIP

[Yandor]

Well thanks everyone for the great comments, didn't think my little 15 min intermission would actually get approval but hey guess the dumb little things can make all the difference right?

Anyways I took Diamonds advice, and shrunk the icons a bit, its a hard sell, I like both of them... (larger and smaller) but I think I'll stay with the smaller. Also added more rivers on the left side, still have 2 small and 1 large mountain range to go!

oops forgot the image, oh and I added in some roads between major cities

[Diamond]

To me, that looks much better. Imagine if you'd added the roads with the larger icons? There would've been too much stuff crammed in there; now you can still see all that gorgeous terrain underneath.

[alizarine]

I'm agreeing with Diamond here - the icons look a lot better at that size, and you can fit more stuff on (like those roads). The roads are looking great too, they seem just slightly 'in' the ground instead of just slapped on. Dunno if it would work at this scale, but maybe for roads that aren't really 'clean' or well-cared for a bit of fading along the edges might integrate those roads more into the landscape. They look really good right now tho', and that might be for a smaller map.

One thing I'm noticing about the icons is that now they're smaller, maybe the stroke should be a point or two smaller as well - particularly on those orange stars with all the tiny points. The points were getting a wee bit lost in the stroke, it felt like. Looks just great tho', so it might just be a personal thing ^.^

- Alizarine

[Yandor]

Hey thanks for the comments Diamond and Alizarine, I do hold your guys opinion rather high, cause you've helped me through this quite a bit so thanks

As for the stroke, I messed with it, but wasn't too happy about the results (making the stroke smaller, just made the icons look way weird) so I decided to tackle it a bit different used a outer glow and put it black, so its still really close to the original stroke, but its a bit smaller, its still way subtle of a change(only did it to the orange icons) but thanks Alizarine

So everytime I actually sit down and mess with the map, I always push off wanting to do the rivers... why I really don't know its really not that hard, but as I was doing another mountain of rivers, I thought lets try the sea routes, and if I'm doing see, maybe show the "control" each kingdom somewhat has, anyways let me know if they even work or not.

So another small update I guess... but here it is!

p.s. the more and more I see the sea trade things, I'm not liking them... meh I'll just wait to see what you guys think

[moutarde]

I'm late to the party here, but I'm really liking how this is looking so far Yandor One thing that struck me though, is the mountain ridges kind of jump out as being overly straight... I'm not sure what your method was for creating them, but a simple Filter->Distort->Ripple at about 20% would probably take a bit of that straightness out. And even if you leave the mountains as they are, well, it'll still look good

[Yandor]

Moutarde, I'll give that a shot, and see the results, but I was thinking the same things in some of the mountains (might of just been my lack of patience when I was brushing/painting them in, cause some are way better then others....) Anyways thanks for the tip.

[Diamond]

I'm not digging those sea trade route lines; again, just like your original icons size, they look too big and chunky to me. I do like the idea of extending the countries' borders to show maritime control.

Also, what about erasing those bits of map that protrude into your legend box, like that border and that bit of land in the top left corner, and especially that ginormous trade line that cuts right through the middle of the box?

[Yandor]

thanks diamond, I'm going to trash the trade routes stuff, and I'll keep the maritime borders, that little touch I did like, Thanks again diamond, this is near completion, and I couldn't of done it with out your guys help, so thanks again!

[arsheesh]

Trade routes aside, this map has turned out quite nice Yandor. I love the vivid colors. I also agree that reducing the size of the legend icons was a good move.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[alizarine]

Definitely liking those icons - may have been lack of sleep that was making the stroke look funny ^.^ Love the borders indicating maritime control, and I agree that the sea-trade routes are a bit clunky. They are, however, a cool idea, just maybe for a different map - one that focuses on trade routes or something? If/when you do that, maybe a dotted or dashed line ... I dunno if you're using photoshop, but I think I've got a dashed-line brush you could try. This is looking good - can't wait to see some other continents!

- Alizarine