Hidroth Lea

[arsheesh]

To look at the town now it’s hard to imagine the humble beginnings from whence she came. Only a generation ago Hidroth Lea was no more than a wayside stop for herders and the occasional merchant. So little was Hidroth Lea’s import in the northerlands that it did not even show up on any of the maps of Caldoranth. Yet in my lifetime I have witnessed the rebirth of our town! Hidroth Lea is a rising star within Caldoranth, and very soon we shall take our seat along side Endrell and Etobran as one of the most important trade cities within the northern reaches.

—Atherlend Hidroth, Count of Hidroth Lea

Hello everyone. This is a finished version of my entry from last month's challenge. My partner for this challenge was Jaxilon, who commissioned me to do a town map with a river. Since the details were left open I decided to map Hidroth Lea, the town that a campaign I ran several years ago centered around. I was thinking that I may wish to run another campaign based out of this town so the challenge provided me the opportunity to map it.

I probably put over 50 hours into this, and the final layer count was well over 500, which makes this the most involved project I've worked on to date. I learned a lot making this map and got to try out some new techniques. It was heaps of fun, and I'm really happy with the result.

Credit where credit is due. I took a lot of inspiration from other artists here. In particular a2area's Sheinar and Pasis's J.B. Springs have long been among my favorite maps, and I've poured over them many a time. I also took inspiration from some of Max and J. Edwards town/city maps. The technique I used for creating the houses was a variation of Pasis's method.

Hope you enjoy!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[J.Edward]

Awesome Arsheesh. And you have sheep too. Nice.
This is such a beautiful piece of work. I truly like everything about it.

D#*nit... must spread rep... grrrr... well, then I'm going to have to go spread it. This deserves rep right now.

[jpstod]

Nice color coordination

[arsheesh]

Thanks guys! Hey quick question for everyone. Which of the these two images looks better on your monitor?

LIGHT VERSION:
Hidroth Lea Final Image.jpg

DARK VERSION:
Hidroth Lea Final Image.jpg

I ask because I've noticed that most of my previous maps look way too dark and color-saturated on my new laptop screen (which is a newer high end Asus HD screen), though they all look fine in my previous laptop. So I intentionally made this map lighter than my previous maps. However I'd be curious to here from others about their preference so I can get a better sense of whether the issue lies with my old laptop or my new one.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Jaxilon]

I'm the wrong guy to ask I think because I have 2 monitors and they are not quite the same. I will tell you they both look good on both monitors although to me the darker one probably appeals more equally across both however if I want to get down in there zoomwise and see the branches I probably would go with the light one.

So, now you know my dilemma as I do my own maps.

[J.Edward]

I would probably play with the levels - try to get some darker contrast but still pulling up some of the highlights.

[xpian]

Flipping back and forth, I'm liking the darker one better. It makes the lighter one look washed out. I'm a fan of strong contrast in general.

[Blaidd Drwg]

The darker one for me also. The contrast is better than in the light one.

[- Max -]

This is such a beautiful piece of work. I truly like everything about it.

What J. said A great town map ! The darker one will be my choice but I'd increase highlights to balance overall contrast.

[pasis]

This is a very nice indeed. I like so many thing in it, especially the river and the sand/grass riverbanks.

I give my vote on the darker version.