Tirothell - Snuzzi's Journey continues...

[Abu Lafia]

I opened this thread to work further on my unfinished last month's challenge entry.
It depicts "Tirothell, a primal plane of silver mountains and burning wastes, illuminated by a blue sun. The plane is primarily populated by dwarfs, with a few humans. The denizens of Tirothell are beset by swarms of wyverns."
Picking up the idea from my Cayad map, i wanted the map to tell a story, in this case the Journey of Snuzzi, a poor miner's daughter, who strives to face Drec the dark wyvern lord.

Although i added, changed and tweaked quite a lot the last days, there is still much left to do...
I tried out two different fonts for the storyblocks and can't decide which looks better. Would love to hear your opinion on this!

Originally i used the "Herman Decanus" Font.
TirothellWIP6.jpg

Then i tried out the "Son Of Time" Font by Pia Frauss
TirothellWIP7.jpg

I'm aware, that due to the labels, Snuzzi's path and the lines from the textblocks, the map itself is not very readable atm. I think it takes a bit of time to orient oneself (at least, i followed John's advice and tried to make the starting point of Snuzzi's Journey more obvious ). Suggestions on how to improve it are greatly welcome, as are all sorts of comments ofc.

Cheers,
AL

[Falconius]

I'm glad you continued this. On the right side third comment up you have a spelling error, Suzzi instead of Snuzzi. Aesthetically I really like the Herman Decanus font, but its hard to read in that density and perhaps that colouring, at least for me, so I prefer the second one just due to legibility. What really made the Cayad map work as a "story map" was those really illustrative unique features you included and I am so glad you came up the wonders you have here too. I will say it still took me a while to figure out where the beginning of the story starts though

[Robulous]

That is a fascinating map, very good.

[Abu Lafia]

I'm glad you continued this. On the right side third comment up you have a spelling error, Suzzi instead of Snuzzi. Aesthetically I really like the Herman Decanus font, but its hard to read in that density and perhaps that colouring, at least for me, so I prefer the second one just due to legibility. What really made the Cayad map work as a "story map" was those really illustrative unique features you included and I am so glad you came up the wonders you have here too. I will say it still took me a while to figure out where the beginning of the story starts though

Thanks for the feedback Falconius! I agree with you and decided to go with the SonOfTime Font due to the better leigibility. In the end it's quite a lot of text... have to use the Herman Decanus in another project then . I added a "where it all began" label to point out the start of the journey even more.

That is a fascinating map, very good.

Many thanks Robulous, i appreciate it a lot! Also thank you for the rep btw.

TirothellWIP8.jpg

I finished writing down the story part and added a few details here and there. Also tweaked the position of some labels and the textblocks. Since some parts of the landscape looked a bit empty, i added some fancy "runic" circles with low opacity. Would love to hear your sincere opinion about it before i can call this piece finished. I'm unsure if it's not too cheesy

[kacey]

Whimsical, maybe, but not cheesy. I really like this map, and it was a joy to read through Snuzzi's journey. The clean lines look really nice, it seems polished, and really well done. I love that it looks like the land mass is floating in the stars, and every thing seems to be glowing, it has a really nice atmosphere to it. I think the whole theme is really cute... Good job.

[ThomasR]

Nice to see you going on with this one. I agree with the nice comments that have been made, the story is good and the choice of font is the good one (I, too, had a preference for Herman Decanus but it's got to be readable). The beginning of the journey is well shown. And good idea changing the hue of the underground path !

Maybe you could use an illumination letter for the T at the start and I think your map wouldn't suffer from a different color for the path (even red, maybe).

Keep up the good work !

[Elterio Delgard]

Beautiful map! It is quite unique! The colours are really giving that dreamworld aspect, or of winter in a certain way also.

[Abu Lafia]

Whimsical, maybe, but not cheesy. I really like this map, and it was a joy to read through Snuzzi's journey. The clean lines look really nice, it seems polished, and really well done. I love that it looks like the land mass is floating in the stars, and every thing seems to be glowing, it has a really nice atmosphere to it. I think the whole theme is really cute... Good job.

Thank you so much for the nice feedback kacey, i greatly appriciate it! Yeah, whimsical is the word i was searching for (and aiming to, atmosphere wise) the whole time.

Nice to see you going on with this one. I agree with the nice comments that have been made, the story is good and the choice of font is the good one (I, too, had a preference for Herman Decanus but it's got to be readable). The beginning of the journey is well shown. And good idea changing the hue of the underground path !

Maybe you could use an illumination letter for the T at the start and I think your map wouldn't suffer from a different color for the path (even red, maybe).

Keep up the good work !

Many thanks Thomas, i'm glad you like it so far! Your ideas are great and i'm looking forward to implement them. I guess, by "illumination letter" you mean an Initial? ... yes, ofc you meant that... should have googled it before

Beautiful map! It is quite unique! The colours are really giving that dreamworld aspect, or of winter in a certain way also.

Thanks a lot for the comments Elterio Delgard! I liked the idea of mapping a plane that's wholly made of solid silver (ok, maybe not the trees) and i'm very glad to hear the dreamy ("whimsical" ) atmosphere is working as intended through the colours.

[Mouse]

If you had finished it, I reckon it would probably have won you a compass. Its beautiful. In my inner world a map should be beautiful, and if it is not, it should at least be interesting and informative. Yours is all three.

[Tom]

Abu, I really fell in love with those mountains.. The whole map make me feel walking in the starry sky..
One silly question: are you planning to add "depth" beneath the land?