Reply With QuoteThat's a very impressive map! Definitly tutorial-worthy, if you would consider sharing your style with the community.
The Island of Hibeos
Hello Everyone!
This is the first map that I've made without any influences from the works of others, meaning that I had to develop my own techniques in Photoshop.
It is a pretty small map (2000x2000 px) that I've been working on for a couple of days now, from time to time.
I wanted to try some new techniques, and I think I found a nice way to give maps a rough, sketchy feel, almost as if they were painted or drawn by hand.
I tried many different ways to get my end result and I also learned a lot of new things, for example, I started creating my own brushes in Photoshop to give the sense of the map being handmade, and I created icons for villages and ruins etc. to make it easier for me in the future.
The font I used for the island's name is called "Aquiline" and is available for free at cooltext.com
Many aspects were held in mind when I drew the map, like the climate and history of the island.
If anyone is interested in my thoughts while drawing the map, I could update this post later on
Last edited by Antonehn; 12-25-2012 at 08:02 AM.
That's a very impressive map! Definitly tutorial-worthy, if you would consider sharing your style with the community.
Thank you very much!
I might consider making some sort of tutorial some day, but I feel that I'll have to work out some sort of structured workflow pattern before I do.
"Definitly tutorial-worthy"
I was a bit surprised actually, to hear that it was that good.
I like it. It reminds me of a grungy version of an old NES game. Star Tropics. c island in particular. http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/sta...cs/cisland.png
Last edited by Inriconus; 12-28-2012 at 04:50 PM. Reason: added link
Well, it does not have to be that good to be a very interesting and beautiful style. Truth be told, it is by far not what I would consider perfect - there are a number of point with the map as well as with the style that I would consider changing. But it is in its current form very pretty, rather uncommon and thus of high interest to see just how you did it.
I didn't want to go into a deeper criticism in my first post - I though that would be better suited to a WIP thread and I wanted to emphazise my first impression of your work.
But now I think I should go over some points that in my view stood out as especially good and those that should be improved.
The coastline is one of most notable features. If that watercolour effect is indeed a technical solution and not solely based on artistic ability, I would very much like to know how you did that.
The base pattern is also great. It gives to whole piece alomost the appearance of a woven tapestry. The crayon-like style of the mountains is also great, though here I would like to see the option of a little blurring, or perhaps a medium grey sublayer, in the style of the coastline.
The rivers look very nice in style, adding to the "woven" look. You really really should reconsider the layout though... rivers just do not behave that way. As always in this case, this thread is the best way to get a hint about rivers.
The woods didn't come out that good in my opinion. The basic idea of green blotches fits this style quite nicely, but here they came out to sharp, to digital. I'd say it is the sharp black outline that leads to that result. You could try getting rid of that outline - perhaps replace it with an irregular, slightly brighter green background, again in the coastline style.
Most of the icons are fitting in very well again. The house icons though are a little to kindergarden-like for my taste and do not really fit in such a map. You could either leave them out completely, having your settlements marked with the circles alone, or replace circle and houses with some other kind of icon (drawn in the fitting style, of course)
I hope this now wasn't to overwhelming or discouraging... I would love to see more of your work!
Freodin, this is exactly the kind of comment that I need.
Thank you for being so honest with me, your comment really gave me a lot of ideas on how to refine and work on my style of drawing maps.
As I said before, this is one of my first real maps that I have made solely on my own, and I need critisism and constructive critique to refine my work.
Once again, thank you very much!
Oh, and Inriconus: Yes indeed, this island and "C Island" are almost interchangable!
I have actually never heard of the game Star Tropics, is it any good?
I like the effort you put into keeping the map hand painting touch
Antonehn: Star Tropics was one of my favorite NES games as a kid. It was pretty innovative for its time, great music too. The game came with an actual letter from one of the main character's relatives in which you had to poor water on it to get some coordinates to type into your ships computer in the game.
Nice job, you have some good stuff to work from and I also look forward to seeing more.
It seems like most of us are pretty careful as far as Critiques go in the "Finished Map" area, unless you ask for them of course. If you want the most feedback usually a WIP thread in the appropriate forum will get you what you need.
Keep up the good work.
“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden
* Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt
