The Civilized World and Known Parts of the Wild

[Lingon]

Let's hope so

Forests colored, which means all the work I'll be doing by hand is done… probably.
KändaVärlden9.jpg

And here's an experiment with an added texture and some color tweaks. Good or bad idea?
KändaVärlden10.jpg

[Llannagh]

Wow, I really like this!

Kudos for doing it all by hand, that must've taken a lot of planning to get the right order of the layers. Also dig the forests.
Regarding the rivers: In my opinion squiggly rivers are more natural, as most rivers nowadays are straightened (i think).

The textured + color tweaked version looks better to me, it gives it a more... steamy style!

Looking forward to how this'll turn out in the end. And good luck with your story!

[Chashio]

Beautiful! I like the way the textured one pops the contrast and colors, but maybe the texture could be less obvious or is even unnecessary... Have you tried with a similar adjustment without using the texture?

Also, have you ever done any calligraphy or lettering, by chance? because you could do that by hand too and have a really complete handmade map to hang on the wall.

[Lingon]

@Llannagh:
Thank you! It did take a lot of planning, yes… more than I like, actually. After this is done I'll probably do something more spontaneous and improvised, to relax a little

@Chashio:
Thanks! I like the contrast too. I tried lowering the texture's opacity, which turned out much better! I think it's a bit too cool to remove completely though… And calligraphy, I'm working on it actually, but my handwriting is absolutely horrible! It'd be nice to be able to make a finished map completely by hand (even though I'm not so much into hanging my own paintings on the wall ), but it might take a while before I get there! At the moment it'd look like I had handed the map to a kindergarten group when it was time for labeling.

Here's a little update, with a less in-your-face-y texture, plus the title and a label test added (close to the center, if it's hard to see. There will be a city in that river fork.) Not sure if I should keep this label style or go with simple, plain black text like in the title? There won't be very many labels, so I don't think it'd be too overpowering, but maybe it's a bit too flashy?
KändaVärlden11.jpg

[Llannagh]

I think a plain black label would be harder to read than the one you're using now. It sets of nicely from the somewhat dark green of the forest.

[Chashio]

I've spent a lot of time recently with lettering, for a commission and general practice... my natural handwriting is also incredibly atrocious (maybe we could combine ours and make a font ) so I figured it'd be a good way to improve it... hasn't really improved my handwriting because when I'm just writing I don't care enough, but my lettering is getting better. I started by lettering on a separate sheet of paper and scanning it to put into a digital commission, but pretty soon I'm going to have to get around to finishing a gift map for my brother and it is pen on paper and has a lot of very tiny labels spread all across it.

The label color does stand out on the forest, though you might run into problems elsewhere. The style is not so much 'flashy' as digital. You could probably nix the outer glow and it would show up just dandy on top of what's there, but then again... elsewhere. If you change the color to something not used in the map itself (you have some reds in the cartouche decorations, for example) it would work just as letters without needing extra stuff to make it legible. It's not bad as is (and I like the fact that you went lighter and not just black), it's just definitely digital with the glow around it. The title is nice and I do like that font very much Only suggestion I might offer there is maybe rasterizing the text when it's all finished and hit it with a touch of unsharp mask to bring it into focus with the inked artwork.

[Lingon]

@Llannagh:
Good point, the text has to be light to be visible. Thanks.

@Chashio:
That could be the awesomest font ever
Digital, yes… Very digital. I had an idea in my head, something like white letters printed on top of black letters, but either I'm not good enough with Photoshop or it just wouldn't come across like that no matter how it's done. So, black glow removed I tried red and blue for the text color, but it looked pretty artificial too, so I think white is the way to go.
The title actually has a bit of Gaussian Blur on it, but I increased it somewhat, and that was a good suggestion.
Also added a few more labels, to see what they'd look like at different sizes, opacities and backgrounds. I think it works. I'll add blur to these as well and maybe adjust the kerning, but roughly:
KändaVärlden12.jpg

By the way, I feel the need to point out that the latin is thematically appropriate… Not trying to be cool or anything If anyone actually speaks latin (I don't), feel free to point out my errors!

[Chashio]

White letters on top of black letters.... two text layers, the top one white/light color. Rasterize the bottom black text and select pixels, then make a new layer above that and with the selection create a new layer mask. Fill the layer with black and then refine the mask edge to expand just a little bit further than the white text or as much as you want.

Did I say blur? I meant sharp. Ah well.

[Lingon]

That sounds like it'd do the trick! But I've come to like the plain white now I added a few more labels in the update below, and some city/village icons, and I'm getting more and more sure that I should keep the text simple. Also painted a couple of jawbones
KändaVärlden13.jpg

[Lingon]

Huh, I think I'm done. Didn't see that coming.

I put in the last labels and icons, blurred them a little, decreased the size of the jawbones, added a border (one segment = a half day's ride), and… that was all I was planning to do, I think. Maybe I've forgotten something, or maybe there's something that should be there that I didn't think of, and maybe there's something I must tweak, so I won't call it definitely finished yet… but pretty much.
KändaVärlden14.jpg