Did I make a real map yet? D:

[Jalyha]

Is it is it is it a map?


This is Ibala, which I built, in my other thread, starting with just a bunch of plates.

Ibala isn't very old... Men exist there, in small tribes and bands.

It's a pretty wild world, very hot... hot and dry in some places, hot and wet in others.

ANYWAY I finished laying out the biomes and was just playing with stuff and made this:

Ibala.jpg


And I thought it looked rather like a map

Is it?

I'm sure there are things wrong, and I would LOVE for you all to point them out, but mostly I just wanna know if this is a real honest-to-goodness map yet?

Either way, I'm off to make other things


xoxoxo

[Tracker]

Hello:
Is it a Map? Yes it is. depending on how much information or how much of a story you want to tell with it, it can be complete. I like the visiual of the map. The look of the paper it is on, works very well. I had a little trouble with how close the colors are for the different topographical types, but that is probably just my old eyes. It looks good.

Tracker

[Diamond]

Of course it's a map!

Like Tracker, I had trouble telling apart the biomes/colors; what about overlaying some of the more similar colors with very light crosshatch patterns or lines, etc, to help differentiate them more?

I like the layout and overall idea behind this. Kind of like Stone Age D&D...

[Jalyha]

Yay.

The biomes *were* pretty different... but then I had to make it kinda transparent-y to blend like it was part of the parchment, trying to do like -Max- did on his guild tower, and I lost a lot of color >.< I dunno how to do that with really good color differences yet...


I'll try some cross-hatching type stuff and see if it helps!

And yes, very stone-age But mostly very tribal... I keep playing african chants, lol. And "Ibala" is like a wide open piece of land in ZULU language

Which fits the jungles/deserts nicely as well, I thought

Probably (unless the crosshatching helps a lot!) I will call this one done, and move on to either a handdrawn or political-type map, or a map that actually shows the geography

Just really was checking that I did it right and I DID

YAY!

(Pretty excited, I'mma go jump up and down and be back soon)

xoxoxo

[Ilanthar]

That's an antique map indeed! Very harmonious.

I have the same feeling than others about the colors. It happens often when you blend things together... I use to do a lot of tests (changing taint/saturation/brightness) to get the "what feels right" both artistically and legible.

I would probably reinforce the coastlines a bit, too.

[Jalyha]

Thanks!!

and Oooohhh ok. You mean like an outline around the coast?

[Lingon]

It certainly is a map, and a very nice one too I've got a couple of thoughts:
Like the rest, I think the colors are too similar to be easily legible. Diamond's cross-hatching idea sounds good, and it might help to tone down the parchment too.
The frame, text and compass looks more digital than the map, which is quite soft and fuzzy. Some blur and lower opacity would make it blend in more.
I don't like the font It works at this large size, it's easy enough to read, but I think it's too fancy and exaggerated.

[Jalyha]

Thanks!!

Bah. I was trying for a "Tribal" look with the font... so I tried a font called "Tribal" Guess it failed

I think the digital-look of the compass is funny cause I actually sketched it out by hand and then "traced" it into gimp (The map was all Gimp!)

But yeah it looks .. harder, clearer. I'll try a blur!

I'm still working on the cross-hatching, and have a very tiny section done, but I think I'm doing it wrong cause it just looks black now D:

[Lingon]

Hehe, I'd stay away from fonts with overly descriptive names For some reason they often try to hard, and end up looking exaggerated, in my experience. With fonts, subtle is best, I think. I looked through my collection for fonts that might work and found Chalkduster (could look like it was written on a cave wall), Herculanum, Hobbiton (also a little exaggerated to be honest), Letter Sseungi (a bit Asian-inspired), Lithos Pro (very subtle, but I like it), and Papyrus (somewhat overused, but a really nice font). Some of them are free download, but some where pre-installed on my computer so I don't know if they might cost something if you don't have them. But they could be worth looking into It's also possible to go another way and not try to find something tribal at all, but make the map as if drawn by outsiders, so you could use a nice roman font or even something modern or sci-fi.

[Jalyha]

Aye

I don't have a lot of fonts, but I think I've a few that would have been better

Too late now, though... I merged my text to my map at some point >.<


Anyway. I DID work on the color thing.. and I think I found a compromise... and it might have fixed part of the "digital" look with the extra stuff...


Ibala.jpg

Is it better? Worse? Still needs work?