July 2017 Challenge: Dorthellin

[jshoer]

Well, I've been a bit out of it just in keeping up with real-life stuff, but I have been wanting to get myself back in gear and do some maps, so what better way than to jump into a challenge late? I probably won't make it, but the random generator gives such fun-sounding prompts!

Initial prompt: "Dorthellin, a medieval plane of shadowed canyons and azure seas, illuminated by a golden sun. The plane is primarily populated by humans, with a few elves. The denizens of Dorthellin live in the decaying ruins of a fallen empire."

I plan to make the seas be flooded canyons, which are sketched below along with the positions of mountain ranges. I'm also hoping to play with lighting and shadow, given the description of the prompt, and place ancient ruins throughout with small villages in their remains. Because of the description of Dorthellin as a "plane," the edges of the map will suggest a circular disc-world floating in space - though that is largely a stylized idea of the mapmaker.

I originally wanted to do this by hand, but I can't find my paper in the right size! So I'm working in PhotoShop. Given my inexperience there, it's probably going to come out cartoonish, but that's okay. This is just going to end up a best effort to finish a cool study.

### Latest WIP ###
ChallengeJuly2017.png

[jshoer]

When I completed the arcane Ritual, the Vastness deposited me upon the Altar at the Center of Dorthellin. This Plane is much like our own Mond, save for the golden Quality of the Sunlight slanting in from the West. It is a land of perpetual fading afternoon Light, casting its magnificent Canyons into Shadow and stressing the mountain ranges that cut across my view. The Mountains dominate the terrain to the west of the Altar. To the East lies the Sea, which I suspect fills an ancient and far deeper canyon than the Chasms I encountered on my previous journeys across the Plane.

### Latest WIP ###
ChallengeJuly2017.png

[Diamond]

I like where you're going with this - and don't stress. If you don't complete it in time, no big deal. And I hope you do complete it, because it's got promise!

[jshoer]

Thanks, Diamond. I'm going to do my best, and I want to at least get it into a shape where it's finished "enough" for the challenge. We'll see how far I get!

### Latest WIP ###
ChallengeJuly2017.png

[Mouse]

Oh I love the idea

Great concept - I hope you finish it.

And even if you don't, it would be worth finishing it beyond the end of the challenge in an ordinary WIP thread

[jshoer]

One of the more striking features of this Plane is the famed Golden Sun of Dorthellin. The warm afternoon light gently cradles the sharp peaks of Dorthellin's mountain ranges and softens the crisp edges of the Canyons. Making my way northwest of the Altar, I encountered my first Glimpses of these pleasant sights. Deep shadows and golden highlights cast the Mountains into such wonderful relief. Of course, when Evening comes, I must needs choose my Camp carefully.

### Latest WIP ###
ChallengeJuly2017.png

[jshoer]

No little bit of fiction today - but I think I have the palette of major features I'll be using. Open to critiques!

### Latest WIP ###
ChallengeJuly2017.png

[jshoer]

The common Folk of Dorthellin keep to themselves. They live in the Shadows of ancient Ruins that speak of a once-great Empire. The name of that empire is lost to History. (Indeed, not even the great Archives from whence I commenced my Ritual contain a record of Dorthellin's distant Past.) Such amazement meets the Eye when travelling the expanses of the Plane: great Earthworks diverting the courses of Rivers, now crumbled; an awesome Forum which now shelters a simple Village in its lee; and the Altar itself.

ChallengeJuly2017.png

[jshoer]

Before I get any further on the colors, I need to ask some, er...introductory PhotoShop questions. (This is about the second or third map I've done in PhotoShop.)

I want to smoothly blend colors on different layers into each other, by layer, according to their transparency. This is no problem with the layers set to "Normal," but with a texture underneath everything, I've changed them to "Multiply." For example, in the below image, I want the dirt brown color to shade into the gray mountain color in the regions marked (1). I want the dirt color to make a sharp transition to the mountain color at the ridgelines in region (2).

blendingColorsHalp.png

I can think of two ways to do this - One, do it all on one layer, in which case the paint acts like paint and I could generally rely on my intuition for how things work, but I lose flexibility; or two, go over it with a low-hardness eraser and do it manually. (You can see I have already tried the latter where the grass and dirt colors shade together in the right of the image.) But I figure there must be some way to do this by blending layers together, and I'm just inexperienced with PhotoShop and unsure what keyword to search for to find out. Help an amateur cartographer improve?

Here's the current status of the whole WIP. We're cooking with rudimentary borders and textures now:

### Latest WIP ###
ChallengeJuly2017@0,5x.jpg

[Diamond]

If it's difficult to blend stuff correctly because of the multiply setting/your canvas, why not put the canvas layer on top of everything else, and set that layer to multiply?