A Basic Map - Timed

[Ramah]

Hey people,

As I am already finding myself getting restless doing the city map I am working on I thought creating another map between bouts would ease the stress and should hopefully keep me motivated. So I had an idea that I would create a new map, just a small one to start with, and post progress etc. up here. I am a very slow mapper, I tend to lose focus easily and after five minutes of work, sit back and stare at the screen for ten minutes as I try to decide how to proceed. One step forward, two steps back.

Maybe to try and combat that situation or at the very least learn how much time I actually waste, I've decided to do this new map in a timed manner. I will post an updated image to the thread after every hour of work. I'm not trying to make this a speed map and do it as fast as I can, I just want the images to show regular progression however fast or slow that may be. I have my timer in front of me ready to go and when the alarm sounds I will take a new screenshot and restart the timer.
Also, when I upload an image I will try to describe what I did and where the time went and in that way I guess it may end up like a mini-tutorial on my style.

Right, just as a start I allowed myself 5 minutes to sketch out the map, in this case an island, so I had something to post here rather than just words.

Basic_Timed_Map_Sketch.jpg

Ok, off we go...

[Ramah]

1 hour in...

Timed Island - 1 hour.jpg

I also took a couple of extra snapshots during this section to show how I got here...

First, with a white background I roughed out the general shape of the landmass with an 8px pencil in black. Using a pencil instead of a brush saves me a load of time as I can fill and draw without fear of leaving some low opacity artifacts behind - something I have often in the past spent many hours trying to get rid of.

Timed - 8px base.jpg

I then adjusted it somewhat with a 3px pencil to make it a little crunchier and added some little islands for added interest.

Timed - 3px base.jpg

I then softened the edges of the landmass with a blur and copied this to an alpha channel.

After adding a background texture it's then a case of using the alpha channel to create inside and outside strokes of varying size and opacity to form the land/ocean edges.

At this stage I guess it's not important it's set as an alpha channel but when I add the rivers (once the mountains are in place) I add a second alpha channel and redo the land/ocean strokes and this can add gradiated rivers.

[Greg]

An interesting idea to try and discipline yourself. I too map pretty slowly, but usually have a couple of maps on the go, so if I get stuck on one, I can continue working on a different one if need be and then the motivation/inspiration for the original one may return.

Sometimes I do definitely get into a blip though where I don't particularly want to work on any. Then I try to start a new one and the cycle begins again!

[Ramah]

2 hours in...

Timed Island - 2 hour.jpg

The whole hour was spent finishing the detailing on the mountains and hills and then adding a first layer of shading to them.

[Ilanthar]

Hey, you're faster than me! The linework on the mountains is a bit too pale compared to the mountains, imho.

[ChickPea]

This is an interesting idea! I think you're doing pretty well to get to where you're at within two hours. I suspect my hourly updates would show half of the previous hour's work erased because I changed my mind/didn't like it.

Watching avidly and I like what you have already. The mountains look nice but I see what Ilanthar is saying. I think the dark coastline only emphasises the paler linework on the mountains.