[Region 1][Map 10] Qashya Mal - central steppe

[Gamerprinter]

Since I'm a map-making demon this month with two map contests complete, I decided to try something new with a completely different style than before for the middle region of Qashya Mal. Its still called Qashya Mal - as this Khanate is large.

There is only 1 town, and as a tribute to Torq - its called Torqaar!

All other settlements are temporary steppe nomad villages and therefore not mapped.

After my experimental map sample on Jfrazierjr's thread - I thought I'd create a different style of mountains. This was completely created in Xara Xtreme 4.0

WIP so far...

[Torq]

The map is marvellous GP. I think the new style works well and the colour scheme is rich and satisfying without going over the top. The plateau area above the lowlands and below the ridges seems to be flat. would that not have some settlements? I'm flattered to have town named after me and see it as a place where I can settle down in my twilight years. I just hope its a place where all the women are at once both smouldering and mysterious and all the men can both tie a knot and throw a punch.

Great work, as always.

Torq

[ravells]

Really nice textures, GP! Lovely map! And all in Xara too! Have to say, I'm very jelous that Drawplus doesn't support plug ins like Xara does, although I'm not sure whether you used any in the making of your map. Does Xara support layer blending styles (e.g. multiply, screen etc) as well? The lack of them is another real minus for drawplus for me.

[Gamerprinter]

Really nice textures, GP! Lovely map! And all in Xara too! Have to say, I'm very jelous that Drawplus doesn't support plug ins like Xara does, although I'm not sure whether you used any in the making of your map. Does Xara support layer blending styles (e.g. multiply, screen etc) as well? The lack of them is another real minus for drawplus for me.

Actually no plug-ins used (though Xara supports many). What is used heavily in this map is layers of mixed transparency with "stained glass" filter applied at 0% tranparency (I would say that "stained glass" works exactly like multiply layers) - its like showing the layer below it by combining colors and darkness between the two. Lots of beveling in the mountains

I was thinking of taking this file into GIMP to add some 3D bump onto that flat area between lowland and ridgeline - other than that, not much I need to add. I may add a few more communities.

Also aside from wanting to try a new mountain technique - I was also being incredibly lazy, as this map only took a little more than an hour to create from scratch.

[industrygothica]

Is this ready to go into the Qashya Mal entry in the wiki?

[Gamerprinter]

Yes.

GP

[Hoel]

There's a lot of jagged edges and low res stuff in there. Is it supposed to look this rough?

[Gamerprinter]

It might be worth redoing, the style I used to create the Continent of Celanta and other similar maps, was started using this map. So I've made many improvements to the style since that time.

There's only one town, as this is the land of the Mongols and many of their towns are wagon towns, that move when they move, so few permanent settlements - this is the vast grassy steppe though.

Torqaar, is on the Spice Road, and has become a resupply center for those traveling that road.

Just got too many current projects to get back to this anytime soon.'

GP

[industrygothica]

It's been added to the wiki. Easily updated if you ever get around to it.

Thanks.


-IG