Land of the Eleven Tribes

[LonewandererD]

Hey

With the complete mind blowout i had with the Everlandias I decided to scrap the whole thing and move onto another project, although I will recycle the parts that I felt worked great in the Everlandias. Now, instead of a whole world I'm just going to be doing small parts of it as is needed by the story I'm trying to write. Besides, you get more details in smaller regional maps than regional ones.

First I'm starting with the Lands of the Eleven Tribes (better name pending), a large, green, mid-latitudal country thats on the verge of great change. Will get up more maps as soon as I can make a believable coastline, so I leave now this small practice map, it borrows elements from Tuts i found from all over the guild e.g. pasis's mountains, ascension's forests, etc.

-D-

[Steel General]

Looking good so far...

[Ascension]

I like it.

[LonewandererD]

Thnx, i really like these new mountains. Getting a base map for this soon; shamefully I must admit I'm making the map by chopping uyp my old maps and pasting them together to make something new, hope no one minds. Four quick questions though, one about scale, two environment and one artisitc.

1) What do you think a large enough size for this map should be? The nations is basically made up of eleven smaller nations, hence the name, and I'm using a scale of 4 pixels = 1 mile. I want it to be large enough that I can get plenty of details in there but not too large.

2) Is there a rule that dictates where forests grow. I was thinking of having a huge inland forest.

3) Same as two but for snow. I'm thinking of having a race of ancient beings that live in castles high up in snowy peaks for protection.

4) Floating/flying islands are not uncommon in my world, along with magick-powered airships. How would I represent flying islands on my map, have them floating on top of a cloud layer?

-D-

[wormspeaker]

I'm really digging those mountains. There's a little posterization (or at least what looks to be posterization) on them in some places though.

[LonewandererD]

if you mean the area near the peaks of the mountains don't worry, I just rushed the peaks a little too much and so they look a little "craggy", which works in some areas but the next mountains I do will be neater.

Also while fiddling around I came across what I think would make a nice farmland look, I'm not going to post it becuase the map is essentially the same as the previous one and so it seems a waste. On a side note, I'm thinking of using pasis' little town texture-symbol-things, because if farmlands are visible than the same would apply to towns/forts/villages and maybe towers. Unfortunately I'm stuck as to how to do it . Not the painting of the towns but the preperation of the town pattern.

-D-

[Aylorian]

Love the mountains and the style of this map - wish I could pick your brains on how to recreate it

Only feedback is that the bevel/shadow on the river makes it appear to jump out of the terrain rather than sink into it on the fully zoomed view. Could just be my eyes/monitor, but worth mentioning in case anyone else sees it.

[Steel General]

Only feedback is that the bevel/shadow on the river makes it appear to jump out of the terrain rather than sink into it on the fully zoomed view. Could just be my eyes/monitor, but worth mentioning in case anyone else sees it.

It appears that the light source is coming from the South East rather than the North West (which is the default in PS), so it may just be your eyes 'tricking' you.

[elemental_elf]

Looks good thus far, can't wait for more!

[Ascension]

The scale on that map is tricky...the river is too wide for the mountains or vice-versa. The mountain size makes me think around 800-1000 miles but the river and forest makes me think 200-400 miles. I'm all for artistic exaggeration but some aren't. If I had to make a call then I'd put it in the middle and say 500-700

There are rules and there are generalities for where forests are. I don't the know the rules so I'll stick to generalities...no water = no forest and really big mountains block rain. It's your map and if you want a forest somewhere in that desert then I'd put an oasis there.

Snow is pretty much the same but with the added dimension of hot/cold. Rain + cold = snow. Hot/cold is also affected by height...higher = colder. So if you want some snow on your mountains then I'd put it in.

Floating islands would best be indicated with a drop shadow that has a big distance. Drop shadows are great at making things look like they're floating.