Glashad - Fishing Village WIP

[Sandman01086]

Hi all, as part of a personal project I am beginning to map out some of my villages & towns in the Trader's Pass region (WIP post here: )

Here is my current WIP, Glashad, a small fishing village in the North East of the region. I've only spent a few hours on this so far, but have managed to get most of what I want into the village.

Still to do:

- Change effects on the text
- Change effects on the roads and the muddy areas
- Still think the village looks a little bit bare, needs fleshing out a little bit more
- Add contour lines to the water
- Some names are currently placeholders so will get them changed
- Would like some animal symbols for the farm, although I can't seem to find any in CD3, does anyone know of any free symbol catalogues anywhere?

Any other comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Sandman01086]

So here's V2, I've managed to get most of what I wanted done, but still feels like something is missing.

- Changed the dirt road and made the effects uniform
- Changed the text, think this looks a lot better now
- Added a slight contour on the water
- Added a blue effect on the water in the well so doesn't look quite so bodged!
- Added a couple of extra plants near the temple

Would be grateful if anyone has any advice on how to beef this out a bit more.

Cheers

[Wingshaw]

Alright, let's go

- I agree that the text is a nicer font (although I think that there are possibly better ones out there), but the readability is lower. The white outline you had to your text on the previous version made it more readable, but didn't look so great. I don't know what software you're using for this, but if its Photoshop you could give the text a slight glow, that enhances readability in a more subtle way.

- It looks a little strange, I think, that the coastline is an almost perfectly straight line.

- The water has been improved by adding the contours, but it also looks a little plain. What about adding some ripples and waves? Fishing boats? Alternatively, you could add more contours, getting fainter as they move from the shore, and with varying thicknesses & shapes.

- Maybe it is just personal preference, but I dislike having areas of a map that contain nothing. All that grass you have on the left hand side of the map looks a bit dull. You could add some farmland, trees, rocky outcrops, small pathways... Or you could crop the image to eliminate that area altogether.

- The path you have looks a little funny. First, the colour is very bright and saturated. Second, the texture makes the path look very bumpy - is that deliberate? Third, the path is very wide in many places (eg. that street just above the pig farm has a very wide path, while the paths into and out of town, and to the temple, are much narrower - that implies that more people walk down that little street than go to the temple, or leave/arrive in the village). Fourth, in some areas the shape you used to make the path is very visible (eg. the large oval shape used for the central 'plaza')

- The buildings look rather plain. You could try adding dormer windows, a little bit of variety in roof texture/colour (this is one to be careful with, though, as it can easily go too far...). Additionally, adding a bit more variety to the landscape around is never a bad idea - backyards where carpentry work is done, small sheds, boatyards, small gardens...

- The style of the jetty is very different to that of the rest of the map, and it sticks out very visibly. Try to keep the visual elements within a consistent style, as much as possible.

- Lastly, some elements that are worth putting some time into to really enhance a map are things like borders, title boxes, legends, scale bars, compass roses. These can be easily neglected, but their inclusion can transform a map very positively.

As with your Trader's Pass map, all of these suggestions are intended to help, not criticise

Wingshaw

[Sandman01086]

Thanks for your comments Wingshaw, you've been a massive help to me so far! I'm currently using City Designer 3 with CC3+ but I'm starting to feel like the symbol sets are a bit restricted. For instance, the jetty is actually the only one within the software. I imagine I'll have to either find some more symbol sets or create them. There's plenty for me to do for now, and hopefully I can either add some finishing touches with CD3 or export to GIMP and see if that can help me.