Council of Five - Floating Castle
OK, inspired by the floating castles of DragonLance & Moon's Spawn from the Malazan series I decided to create my own.
Here in it's very early stages is Castle (Insert Name Here), home to the Council of Five - a group of wizards of nearly god-like power who lord over the planet of Animaar.
This is in its very early stages, I used Ascension's asteroid-making tutorial as a base to start from. There are parts I like quite a bit, and some I'm not to happy with at the moment.
I was looking for some very simple creature "icons", as each of the wizards is aspected to a certain kind of creature(s); Feline/Lupine/Ursine, Avian, Insect, Reptilian/Amphibian, Arachnid/Scorpion. So far I haven't found anything I like so I defaulted to some hieroglyphic symbols I got from the Dundjinni forums.
So here you go...
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Lookin good so far. I'd like to see ya do up a continent or regional map underneath the clouds and maybe put in a floating shadowOh, also you gotta clean up the isolated pixels floating around the outside of the landmass. Waiting with baited breath for the next wip
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
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Thanks... I may have to redo the sky and clouds to add a landmass as they are all one layer, unless I just do some smaller 'islands' scattered about. Have to play around with that.Originally Posted by Ascension
Lookin good so far. I'd like to see ya do up a continent or regional map underneath the clouds and maybe put in a floating shadow
I'll get those isolated pixels cleaned up on Monday, as the file is on my work PC.
What do you think of the idea of having each of the satellite towers a different texture? Too much? Or maybe using the same texture with a different hue/saturation settings to give them some individuality. Not sure, just thought I'd throw that out there.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
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Agreed with ascension about the land below. See Torqs winning challenge entry in the low byte VTT map of May.
I have just finished re-reading chronicles myself and I did enjoy those castles which add an extra dimension of tactics to the party plot.
As for animals etc. There is a copyright expired bestiary with loads of animals in it which might do the trick. Cant remember where I saw it tho but that bestiary word narrows it down a bit in google. If I come across it ill edit it in here.
Looking good tho.
I'm thinking that it looks a bit like an island in water, but if you wanted to make it seem to be flying that putting a seperate terrain map (or even a partly obscured town or city) under it and blend it so that it looses the focus due to how far away it is...
At least that is what I want to do now that you got me thinking about this.
oh and a shadow cast on the ground off to the side.
I'm not familiar with the story so if there are reasons to do it that way then do so. My own thoughts (not following ANY story) would be to do them with an elemental tie-in to the animal avatars...like red/fire with the scorpion, green/nature for the bear, etc. But not a bright red that sticks out like a sore thumb but a dark and muted red like the color of bricks and a green that's more mossy/leafy. Of course you could do the hieroglyphics with color and keep the buildings stone and chop up the land to reflect the elements (desert, woods, lakes, etc).
My 2 bits.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
OK, here are some updates; added real simple 'regional map' below and redid the clouds (may redo them again, not sure I like them). Also did a version with colored towers (the green tower may be too dark).
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Very nice. The color one looks good. I think you are right about the clouds need a bit more love. Too much pure white in many places, so it needs a bit more color variation than just pure white. Hmm.. might be time for you to play with layer masks(hint hint) along with the white/black colors of the clouds to be able to get some parts of the layers to show through at varying opacities. It is looking very nice except those few spots that are pure white. Can't wait to see more.
My Finished Maps
Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
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Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
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Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Thanks... I think part of the problem with the clouds is that the tutorial I used/followed to generate them doesn't work really well at high resolutions. I'll play some more and see if I can't get them to look better.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
I think the figure/ground relationship might need a bit of help here. In my opinion, the ground below is a bit too crisp and focused. I would Gausssian blur that to get rid of the detail and blur it forcing a more narrow feild of focus onto the floating island.
I would also suggest changing the icon color instead of the tower color. That would tie the seprate structures together a bit more and have them mirrored nicely in the central tower area as well.
Great stuff so far
Something witty and pithy
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