Watercolor regional map w digital labeling - feedback welcome

[ch1m1changas]

Hi all,

I'm new here -- this is an amazing site. I'm running a D&D campaign for my friends and decided to create my own map for it. It's my first map, and I'm generally happy with it, but I don't know what I don't know (I think a renowned philosopher of international warfare once called these "unknown unknowns" ) and I would truly appreciate feedback.

smaller Nattakh 2.1.png

-All terrain features are watercolor and ink (over pencil) on regular vellum paper. I welcome comments and suggestions on the "physical" art, but at this point I'm gonna leave it as is; I'm too unpracticed at GIMP for touch-ups and besides, I reckon the styles would clash. Still kicking myself for some stuff, like the fact that the mountains and rivers are sorta iso but the coastline is clearly top-down. Ah well.
-All roads, points of interest, cities, and labels are done in GIMP.
-I'm experimenting with background glow for labels. "Lastwood," "Great Boreal Forest," "Soc-Nalb" & "The Poor Tines" all have a very faint glow. Probably TOO faint. "Gray Forest" has a stronger glow and "Yw Yaet Mountains" stronger still.
-The color of the roads & cities is jarring but I need to distinguish them for in-game reasons, and that was the best I could come up with. I added a Gaussian Blur to soften them a bit.

THANKS: I poked around this site for general tutorials (very helpful) and based the ink outline aesthetic straight off of Jonathan Roberts' tutorials.

[Azélor]

It looks pretty cool, welcome aboard!

I think the quote is from Donald Rumsfeld but I doupt we can call him a philosopher.

For the roads you could try to lower the saturation of the colors.

[Abu Lafia]

Decentralized AND ungovernable??? I'd say your city states meet all criteria for an "unknown unknown"! Btw. Welcome to the guild ch1m1changas! I really like what you've done here. One suggestion would be, since you mentioned "clashing styles", to desaturate the red/blue/yellow roads and icons a bit, so they fit better with the lovely watercolor palette.
Keep up the good work and have some rep for your first map post!


EDIT: Sorry Azelor, i was so hyped about the Rumsfeld quote, i totally overlooked you posted already what i had in mind too ... well, on the other hand, good to know XD

[Chashio]

I'll echo the others' suggestion for desaturating the roads and icons a bit, and or making them less primary in color, but you did a very lovely job with the watercolor. It's a nice map. Welcome to the Guild!

[Diamond]

Welcome to the Guild. Can't add much to what my compatriots have said, other than I love some of those names - Ice Hippies Tundra! LOL

[Freodin]

I agree with all the previous suggestions about the road and city colours... too strong and too digital.

But I am pleasently surprised about the digital labeling... it is quite difficult to get digital labels and hand-painted maps to work together... but you pulled it off very well.
I'd say the outer glow of the "Great Boreal Forest" variant does well... definitly not too faint. You could do without the glow and still have it fit... your colouring is subtle enough to have the labels stand out without any glow.

Try something to fix the overwhelmingly digital colours, and you have a wonderful map! (I wish I could paint. ***sigh***)

[Ninkasi]

This is really gorgeous! I love the watercolor work.

I definitely agree with desaturating the roads, but I also have to ask if it's necessary that they all be different colors.

As to the glow, I think that, for the most part, your colors are light enough that it's not really an issue. The only place where you run into any readability issues at all is the Poortines, which is because they go over coastline, which is your darkest element. I would maybe just put a glow on those. That being said, it's not much of a readability issue so it's fine as is.

The only other comment I'd make is that you have a lot of fonts going on that are somewhat different stylistically. Combine that with mixing the fact that some things are all caps and some aren't, and you've got some names that are curved (and some curve up but one curves down) and there's a lot going on in the labeling department. I might streamline a little.

I think your coastlines and mountains are great, and drawn in a realistic manner. This is a beautiful map.