The City Of Gaul (First City Map!)

[Zitanical]

Hey guys!

I'm back at it with another map! This time my own fictional city of Gaul, which is also located in my fictional world of Amaikri Zeq, which I will also very soon post the map for.

But getting down to the basics of this city, along with my notes on it for a story I'm writing.

In my head, the city of Gaul first started as a humble fishing and monastery town, with it steadily growing around the nearby church of Ednia. Which is a local religion that teaches the practices of one of Amairki Zeq's numerous deities. With Gaul soon becoming a central hub of Ednia's teachings, which in turn lead to more growth and yadda yadda.

But other than that, I really have no (Reasonably short) history of Gaul, I simply just began to draw it as a practice for my first digital city map. And speaking of city maps, I would love some thoughts or criticisms on it due to me being not very familiar with this type of mapping. But all in all, this was quite a fun map to draw, I'm also thinking of redoing a huge handrawn city map of mine digitally, but I think that can be for later.

The City Of Gal.png

[XCali]

A very nice start. And as one that have tackled quite a few city maps over the last few years, those mountain foothills are REALLY good. It's quite hard sometimes to signify mountains top down in a consistent manner, so well done.
I am, however, torn to how I feel that you then added perspective grass elements. On one hand you have an excellent start on your top down map elements, and the other perspective grass? As I said, I am a bit torn about it.

With all that said, I still feel this is a really good start. Good luck with the rest.

[Zitanical]

A very nice start. And as one that have tackled quite a few city maps over the last few years, those mountain foothills are REALLY good. It's quite hard sometimes to signify mountains top down in a consistent manner, so well done.
I am, however, torn to how I feel that you then added perspective grass elements. On one hand you have an excellent start on your top down map elements, and the other perspective grass? As I said, I am a bit torn about it.

With all that said, I still feel this is a really good start. Good luck with the rest.

Thanks for the compliment man! But one thing, those mountains and such are actually forests. I was going to go with the classic treetop approach but I assumed; that with the scale of the map, that it would take a long time to finish. And I really just wanted to get this map out of the way. But I can completely see how one could see them as gorges or mountains, and I'm also currently going through a great change with my way of shading forests for that very purpose.

Also, with the grass thing, I was also somewhat torn about it, but I did it to give texture to the paper. Mostly because I noticed that with just blank ground the map lacked very necessary details. But all in all, I greatly appreciate your criticism! And will definitely use it in some future maps of mine, (along with other people's of course).

[XCali]

Thanks for the compliment man! But one thing, those mountains and such are actually forests. I was going to go with the classic treetop approach but I assumed; that with the scale of the map, that it would take a long time to finish. And I really just wanted to get this map out of the way. But I can completely see how one could see them as gorges or mountains, and I'm also currently going through a great change with my way of shading forests for that very purpose.

Also, with the grass thing, I was also somewhat torn about it, but I did it to give texture to the paper. Mostly because I noticed that with just blank ground the map lacked very necessary details. But all in all, I greatly appreciate your criticism! And will definitely use it in some future maps of mine, (along with other people's of course).

Ah! Sorry man. I totally mistook them for mountains. I guess the lines going as long as they did give them a contour effect.
And on the grass thing. I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY that too much blank space would take away from the map. So, it is better than that. I maybe would suggest having some of the small lines of the grass going in the other direction. That would give it a more top down look.

Still, I have to say this. I know it was by mistake that I saw your forests as mountains and gorges, BUT they really do make excellent representation of top down mountains, so don't cast the effect out in future projects. Good luck going forward.

[Zitanical]

Ah! Sorry man. I totally mistook them for mountains. I guess the lines going as long as they did give them a contour effect.
And on the grass thing. I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY that too much blank space would take away from the map. So, it is better than that. I maybe would suggest having some of the small lines of the grass going in the other direction. That would give it a more top down look.

Still, I have to say this. I know it was by mistake that I saw your forests as mountains and gorges, BUT they really do make excellent representation of top down mountains, so don't cast the effect out in future projects. Good luck going forward.

Yeah, even I notice that the forests look like great gorges or top-down mountains, so I will definitely not get rid of this technique. And thanks for the tip with the grass, I'll definitely try it out next time.