Langarnia - WIP

[Grant]

Hello everyone. I've been lurking around the forums for a couple months now and trying my hand at making a few maps. I've been interested in making maps for years, but I've only recently begun attempting to use a computer to aid me in world creation. I started in GIMP, which worked fine for my purposes. I used RobA's "Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional Map" to get myself started. It's really a spectacular tutorial, and I got some decent results despite the fact I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

After making a few maps that way, however, I was able to build myself a new computer and at that point I switched over to Photoshop CS4. I had a very, very basic level of experience with Photoshop, and I had been impressed with the program's capabilities in the past, so it has always been my first choice. I used Ascension's "My Atlas style in Photoshop" tutorials to re-imagine this same world, and I'll be using it as a jumping-off point to refine my own cartographic style as well as this region. This tutorial also provides spectacular results, and it was simple enough that I never once had to stop and redo any of the steps.

Although I'm generally satisfied with this base map as it is, I'd like to make the mountains a bit crisper and more defined as well as throw in some decent looking forests and find a style of labeling that I like.

Comments and criticisms are welcomed and much appreciated.

[Gandwarf]

Welcome to the guild Grant! I like what you have so far and I have no mayor criticism. My two nitpicks:

1. Not too fond of the mountains, but wasn't too fond of the mountains in Ascension's atlass style either. I would try and make them stand out from the land a bit more.

2. Parts of the coast look very pixelated.

Otherwise a good start as I said and all the rivers seem to be in order as well. Maps like this really start to shine when you add in all the details (places of interest, labeling and perhaps a cartouche and border).

[Grant]

I'm not too fond of the mountains as they are either. I can't decide whether I want to modify this technique so that it better suits my purposes or try starting on the mountains again from scratch.

I think the coast is pixelated because of the way the basic shape of the landmasses were generated. I'm not sure how exactly I should go about fixing it, but I'll look into that.

Thank you for your comments.

[Ascension]

If you have tiny pixels inside the continent then ctrl+click on the Base layer, Select - Modify - Expand = 1, make a new layer just above the Base layer, click on the Paint bucket tool and fill the selection, then merge this layer down to the Base layer...you now have a new base layer now without tiny lakes around the coast. To get rid of tiny islands ctrl+click on the Base layer, Select - Modify - Contract = 1, Select - Inverse, hit the delete key then deselect.

Your mountains appear to be clouds hit with lighting effects, to get something more realistic, remember to do Difference clouds two times before lighting effects. Also there are two blend modes on the mountains layer; the layer itself is set to hard light while the brown color overlay is set to soft light.

You've done pretty well, so keep going or fiddle around and see what you want to tweak.

[Grant]

Thanks for the tips. I'll give that a try and see what I come up with.

[Steel General]

First off...Welcome Aboard!

You've got a fine start here. Ascension's tutorials are fantastic and a great place to use as a start for your own style (I use some of his techniques myself). Looking forward to seeing this develop.

[AslanC]

Nice start! Have some rep