Harmona and Surrounding Nations

[vman3force]

The Kingdom of Harmona, sister nation to Sephora across the sea, occupies an enormous clawed archipelago that juts out into the Sea of Tremine. Rich in resources and blessed with year long summer, It is a land of prosperity.
The rule of Harmona is divided between three powers. The first is Templara Nefir, the state religion, which balances judicial affairs. The second is the royal house, which dictates national agenda. The royal house is elected among the third power, the high nobility, of which there are six houses. Each high noble house controls a holding, one sixth of the land and resources of the country, and can draw upon these resources for their own interests; however they must pay tribute to the royal agenda and Templara Nefir.
Harmona is a land of innovation and industry. With the advent of steel forging and the magic revolution (through the unique channeling properties of the mineral vestimite) the world is quickly becoming revolutionized with steam power, automation and electricity.

This map is for a long term campaign project I am working on - It is part of a larger region, however for the beginning of the game the adventure will focus on this region, and specifically on the capital city Senvale.
This is my second draft of the nation, I decided to flesh out the region more than I did the first time. Im leaving a lot of blank space in the map purposefully. I plan on printing the map large scale and mounting it on cork board, and then using map pins to mark new points of interest as the game progresses.

As far as technique goes, I wanted to go for a stylized approach. I took a lot of time considering color balance and opacity of the different elements. The mountains were an experiment in trying to balance top down shaded topography with the flat look I was working towards - obviously it wouldn't work on every map but Im satisfied with the way it turned out here. Everything was done in Photoshop CS5.

[tilt]

nice map... love the subdued color scheme ... as long as the map is made within the same time frame as the competition you can use it, so you can't have begun it before the competition was announced

[vman3force]

Oops, guess thats a no then; technically I started it back in January but I took a hiatus on it until this month. Oh well, guess I'll just do next month's. It's nice to finally have some time to work on maps again, being at art school's fun but you don't get much time to do work on you own initiative.

[jtougas]

Wow that is really very nice.

[Clercon]

I really like the mountains, they look like Frank Miller did 'em. Great map!

[tilt]

Oops, guess thats a no then; technically I started it back in January but I took a hiatus on it until this month. Oh well, guess I'll just do next month's. It's nice to finally have some time to work on maps again, being at art school's fun but you don't get much time to do work on you own initiative.

remember that there is both the light challenge (running from 15th to 15th) and the "normal" challenge (running from 1st to 25th) to enter, so lots of opportunities to map till your fingers bleed

[arsheesh]

Looks really nice Vman. I especially like the detail in your Legend, and the stylized look is really unique.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Ramah]

Very nice map. Love how clean and crisp it all is.