A style experiment and a revision of Ilaros

[Sular]

I've been playing around with my long-suffering continent of Ilaros and I've hit upon a style which I think works well and is visually pleasing. I'm trying to go for a somewhat antique look with a printed look. I'm pleased with my font choice (though I'm probably going to dispense with the long-s. I was just using it for fun), generally happy with my layout and the terrain. However, I am trying to correct the look of the border and the compass to be more in line with the look of the font. I've heard that there is some way of making an irregular stroke or something of that nature by using paths. I've no experience at all with paths in Photoshop and I'd appreciate any tips on how to go about this.

[Ascension]

You don't necessarily need a path if you draw things out by hand on a tablet or with a mouse but it might make it easier the first few times you do it. All you need is to set some scatter in your brush. Keep the scatter distance very low but up the count to 2 or 3. What this will do is slightly offset each time it puts down a dot and put down two or three dots. Another option is to use a mask. Make a mask of the lines then on the mask run the pixellate-crystallize filter and then smooth it out with the noise-median filter. I do this all the time for lumpy stuff.

[Sular]

I've managed to get some waviness to the lines by using the 'glass' filter in Photoshop. I'm fairly happy with the result. I've also fixed the border to make it more regular and added a scale.

I do have a question about masks. I've never really figured them out so I've generally avoided them. Is there a simple, general tutorial on them about here?

Thanks for the ideas.

[arsheesh]

Looks good! I don't know much about Photoshop, but I know that Jfraz wrote up a tutorial explaining layer masks in GIMP. My guess is that PS offers more options but this tut may at least explain the basics and give you a general understanding of how layer masks work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[jfrazierjr]

Thanks for the Plug Arsheesh... Del.............. did a companion tutorial for PS masks a few days after, but I did not read it.....

[Sular]

Thanks for the link. I'll have a look in to these and give them a try.