Thanks for the input Ascanius, I'll try your suggestions. A quick "manual" of how to get my brush: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...713#post256057
This looks very nice! God job. I love your forests, I've been trying to find some way to add forests to my own map without making it cluttered and/or ruining the aesthetics.
1, I didn't have a problem with the roads in the darker areas, they don't pop out like some of the others but they are still visible, I like the way they are too, without the drop shadow and glow, too.
2. I don't think the boarders are a problem, just my opinion.
3. This I don't know, I think it would depend on the size of the village, and even then a possible solution is to simply remove some forest around the village.
I don't like the drop shadow or the glow, it's the first thing that grabs the eye and takes away from all the other work you did. One idea, that I want to try for my map now that I thought of it, is to paint in the boarders and icons with an unsaturated warm color. Maybe apply a very weak noise map to the icons and roads to give them a very slight imperfection. The only other thing I can think of is I think the rivers should be less saturated and darker. With the ocean same thing but I think having the ocean get darker the further from the coast.
I have to ask how did you do the forests?
Out of rep but when I get some more you'll know.
Last edited by ascanius; 01-05-2016 at 02:15 PM.
Thanks for the input Ascanius, I'll try your suggestions. A quick "manual" of how to get my brush: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...713#post256057
I played around with Illustrator a lot and had to learn the program. Took me a while to figure out how to do things in it, despite watching numerous tutorials on youtube, but I finally got around to a layout of how the finished map might be organized. Bear in mind it'S just a rough concept and by no means final, especially not the borders. I might resize the political map and will refine it more so it'll fit the overall feel of it. This is growing bigger and bigger.
The final version will be large enough so you can have the full zoom as in the other images.
I think I've never gotten this far with a map, and am pretty excited. Golly
It looks good. And I really like your compass !