The Island of Muck - Real World Map

[Tonquani]

The Island of Muck is one of the Small Isles, a group of Islands in the Inner Hebrides, just west of the Scottish Mainland.

I chose it to map as it is fairly small and I was still figuring out what I could do with GIMP.

The mapping info is all taken from UK Ordnance Survey maps and aerial photos. No parchment or textures were used, just various distortions/noise standard in GIMP.

The only part that I am not really happy with is the central grassy areas - they are a bit flat and the bumpmapping to get altitude has not really worked as well as I would have hoped.

Comments / criticisms are much appreciated.

Tonquanimuck final.png

[ChickPea]

Hi, Tonquani. Firstly, welcome to the Guild. It's nice to see a Scottish island being mapped!

A couple of thoughts...

I do agree that the green areas are a little flat and might benefit from some texture. One of the simplest ways to add to texture in Gimp is to use the Plasma filter. Go to Filter / Render / Clouds / Plasma and run the filter. Then go to Colours / Desaturate. Then set the Layer blend to Overlay and adjust opacity if you like. I use that filter fairly often, and it gives a nice effect with very little effort. Alternatively, try a big grunge brush on low opacity and start painting!

I think my biggest nitpick on the map is with the white outline around your labels, particularly the text at the top of the map. The outline isn't too bad on the green areas, but it doesn't work quite so well against the blue sea background. The paragraph of text is much harder to read than it should be.

Another thing you might consider for future maps is to add a legend to show what are roads and paths etc. (I'm assuming the grey lines here are paths?) A small legend at the bottom left would balance things nicely.

Anyway, just some thoughts for your consideration. Looking forward to seeing your next map. Maybe a bigger Scottish island!

[Tonquani]

Hi, Tonquani. Firstly, welcome to the Guild. It's nice to see a Scottish island being mapped!

A couple of thoughts...

I do agree that the green areas are a little flat and might benefit from some texture. One of the simplest ways to add to texture in Gimp is to use the Plasma filter. Go to Filter / Render / Clouds / Plasma and run the filter. Then go to Colours / Desaturate. Then set the Layer blend to Overlay and adjust opacity if you like. I use that filter fairly often, and it gives a nice effect with very little effort. Alternatively, try a big grunge brush on low opacity and start painting!

I think my biggest nitpick on the map is with the white outline around your labels, particularly the text at the top of the map. The outline isn't too bad on the green areas, but it doesn't work quite so well against the blue sea background. The paragraph of text is much harder to read than it should be.

Another thing you might consider for future maps is to add a legend to show what are roads and paths etc. (I'm assuming the grey lines here are paths?) A small legend at the bottom left would balance things nicely.

Anyway, just some thoughts for your consideration. Looking forward to seeing your next map. Maybe a bigger Scottish island!

Hi Chickpea,

Thank you very much for the comments. They are hugely appreciated.

I am just getting to grips with GIMP, so still have loads of things to try, and I hadn't got as far as the plasma filter. It will probably be on the next one...

I wasn't particularly happy with the text either, just loads more playing around with fonts and colours needed, and possibly trying to highlight/shadow it a bit.

As far as Scottish Islands are concerned, if you want islands, there's probably no better place for the variety of shapes and sizes...

T