The island of the hollow tooth

[Guzim]

Hi all,

I'm about to master a short RPG scenario in the world of "Lanfeust of Troy". It's a French comic, very funny with a lot of puns. It worth to read it, you'll spend a very good time.
In this scenario there are pirates, and their lair is in a Island, created by a very ancient and (probably) extinct volcano.
The island name is "The island of the hollow tooth" or simply "The hollow tooth".

Here is my WIP on this island.

I used a tutorial for the border : Map Borders in GIMP, A Cartography Guild Tutorial by Arsheesh.
And I used another tutorial for the map : Creating a campaign map in GIMP, by jsigvard.

Then I tried to put some landforms, following the tutorial : Hand Drawn Mountains, by Torstan

Thank you all for these tutorials.

Here is the WIP.

La dent creuse.jpg

[Guzim]

New version, mountains are finished.

La dent creuse.jpg

Any advices on the volcano ?

[PeriphReal]

Hello Guzim! It is a very nice map and it nicely demonstrates the use of contrast in order to show depth. I've attempted a crater before, and I appreciate how you've managed to create something that is loads better than my attempt

One piece of advise that I would give is that the map looks rather... sharp. I feel like that if I stood on one of the ridges, the rocks would slice me in half! I think it would look more natural to not have as much of a sharp contrast.

I would also suggest trying to 'messify' the map, meaning you add a bunch of irregularities. The lining that you've done is very well done in this aspect; however, the coloring is very smooth. Maybe look to give your map some texture, or get in and manually add minor ridges, cliffs, rocks, variation, etc.

[Guzim]

La dent creuse.jpg

Hello PeriphReal,

Thank you for taking a look at it and for your advices. I have to agree with you on the "sharp" effect and on the smooth coloring.
My next attempt on this map will take your advices into account.
1. Do you think that reducing opacity on the "mountain shadowing" layer would be enough to soften the contrast ?
2. I will try to add a texture to my "mountain shadowing" to add details. I thing also to add a texture for the forest in order to have something less "flat".

Thanks a lot

[Guzim]

I'm not fully satisfied, but here is my last result for this island :

La dent creuse.jpg

1. I did blur the layer where I drew the ridges, to soften it.
2. I had a layer on the shade layer with a sand texture that I overlaid on the shade layer and set opacity to 50%.
3. I also added a texture for the forest.

Is it better or worse according to you ?

[Mapsburgh]

The terrain is looking really great. Is there a reason you're using numbers that reference the legend, rather than just labeling your locations directly on the map?

[PeriphReal]

Is it better or worse according to you ?

It's progress in my eyes. The blur is a tool that I've used more and more sparingly as I've tried more maps. It did lower the sharpness of the ridges but that's because it made everything... well... blurry. It gives the ridges a low res kind of feel.

That doesn't mean this is bad. This kinda has that "messy" look I was talking about prior (Why is messy good? well, messy isn't always good because chaos isn't aesthetically appealing, but being messy is how I generally make something look "natural", because natural stuff has a lot of variation). You may have a good texture going on here I would suggest a few different options. The main goal here is to give the image more clarity (key distinction here: sharpness is not entirely clarity). As a reference, look at your labels. Those are very clear and have what I would call 'clarity'. But they don't look like they'll slice me in half (the sharpness).

Quick explanation on why sharpness is not good in my opinion: mountains are natural creations, and have a lot of variation. Sooner or later, someone will inform you that mountains with points are very, very rare (because erosion). Thus, a 'natural' mountain will be very rocky, and will have loads of elevation changes, dips, cliffs. That's why constant sharpness is unnatural (of course, the artistically adept will utilize it in ways that blow my mind, but I'm not at that level yet )

Before, the mountains had that sharp look which made it a bit unnatural. I think it was caused mainly by the thin, black line combined with the large contrast, with the smooth coloring. Now, with more texture, it may work. I would try a couple options to make your map more clear:

1: You could try creating an overlay layer, and manually overlaying contrasting white and dark to show elevation near the ridges (but isn't this what made it unnaturally sharp in the first place? well, I think that with some texture underneath, and this lighting being an overlay, it will look more natural).
2: Revert to back before the blur and fade the black lining a bit to reduce the sharpness. Then, you could manually add some variation to give it more of a natural look.

Tip about giving maps more texture (if that's what you want): make the texture be the main layer, and then have mostly everything be an overlay layer (or something like an overlay layer which preserves the texture underneath)


Of course I am rather new to mapmaking, and this is just what I believe is what a natural style should like. What I wanted when I first started was for someone to point everything out to me so that I could create the stuff that gets featured on the front page of the Cartographer's Guild. But I've realized that 1. it is very difficult to explain things to people (tutorials are actually quite hard to make, which makes me really grateful for the ones that people have made) and 2. one of the biggest and best teachers is experience (of course, you can find teachers to help, but those usually require money ). That means that the best way to learn is to just try stuff and see what you like.

So don't be afraid to try some stuff and start over; it only means that your next map will be better

[Azélor]

It looks good to me.

Things that could be improved (in my opinion anyway):
The white and black border would look better if it had similar colours to the rest of the frame. The actual colours clashes with the rest.
For the Legend and for the borders around the labels, I would just use a plain brownish border.
I would use a lighter colour for the interior of the labels so to increase the contrast with the black numbers.