[WIP] Small Hamlet of Redleaf
Howdy, I'm working on my digital drafting and painting / drawing skills. This is the first map I've begun and got considerably into the was fully digital throughout - I got a hankering late last night. I'm currently stuck on some line-work issues, figuring out building shadows, making a waterfall effect for the waterwheel, and general texture. Does anyone have any recommendations? This style is highly derivative of Larb's towns (although I messed up pretty much all the line weights I think.) Also, can anyone recommend some Photoshop new file settings to get a nice high-resolution workspace? I hate dealing with pixelation at 400%.
I also have no clue how to get those nice lines on Larb's town buildings, or how to draw a perspective monument (aiming for a fisherman, guy in a cloak will do - heck, even a fish hook) for the Shrine for Pontus. I'm using a Huion drawing tablet, but the transition to pen to tablet is messy (especially since the pen wasn't that strong anyways...)
(Some color sloppiness is just that - I clean up at the end, I promise) Thanks for reading, please look over and give feedback, thank you
Also, check out my vectorized world-map and please give me feedback! Illustrator to the max!
Last edited by Frenchie the DM; 02-15-2016 at 05:34 PM.
Needs some cleaning up definitely, especially around the shores and paths. Some of the buildings are a bit lopsided. Is that line by the orchard supposed to be a fence? I think you should do something with that. Overall, an okay start.
I certainly wouldn't want to walk over that bridge..
It's got some nice elements to it Frenchie, but as Josiah said, it still requires a fair bit of tidying up in places, especially with the building shapes. I don't know if you wanted to go for a ramshackled look, but some of their seem a bit skewed. Also, it would definitely be worth continuing the roof texturing you've done across all the buildings in some shape or form, just to bring them to life a bit more, rather than them just being basic coloured shapess.
On a different note than what Josiah said, another aspect that really is a bit weird is your shadowing. The light seems to be coming from all sorts of directions (mainly from some direction at the top) with some objects shadowed and some not. The shadow of your bridge also seems to unnaturally bend against the water.
It's got some great potential though, you just need to work out some of these elements. You've definitely got the right ideas, just check out a few more maps at the guild to see how their maps differ from yours and experiment!
If you want higher resolution image, you need to adjust the PPI (Pixels-Per-Inch). I'm not really that familiar with digital maps, but I know you can set this when you create a new image and I think you can change it under Image>Image Size. I hope that works and I'd advise you to check out the digital tutorials here http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4276 as you may find some of them useful. I wish you luck!
Thank you guys for your input!
JOSIAH, definitely agree on that bridge, supposed to be locally known for being the rickiest stone bridge in the province, and the Redleaf children often make bets about how much weight they can put on it (usually involving carts of Redleaf Orchard apples.) I've drawn out a fence, how does it look?
GLS, yeah, I redid the buildings and touched up some more of the coloring. I've also revisited some of the shading - still don't know how to approach the Leafcrack Bridge - obviously it doesn't read that the black crescent under it is its arch - I didn't have the shadow put in - it's in now. Also redid roofing lines.
Here's version two - I think a more mature style has emerged, but it's still distinctly cartoony. More J. Edwards - nowhere near it, but still derivative of Larb's style. I don't know how I feel about that. I'll need to redo the ground/cliff elevations, tree shadings, and do some labeling and reevaluating.
Tonnes better! I'm starting to like the look of this! There is still a tiny bit of touching up that should be done with the colours.
A few things I think could be improved a bit: yes the elevation and little cliffs need work. It depends on whether you're trying to keep it really cartoony or give it a bit more of a natural look, but if you want a bit of a more natural look the path might look better without such a bold thick outline, with some grungyness and colour variation so it looks more like a gravel path, and the grass could have some grunge, it looks very flat and smooth. It depends on what style you want it.
And a few minor notes... I love the look of those small stone paths but it seems like someone would have to hop along the stones, since they're so big and spread out, it might be good to put some smaller stones in between. The splashing water around the mill struck me as a tad too much of a teal colour compared to the rest of the river. Also you missed the shading behind the long part of the mill building.
The fence looks much better and the texture on the roofs of the building improves it by so much!
Looking much better now, keep it up.
Josiah
Last edited by Josiah VE; 02-17-2016 at 08:51 AM.
Hey this looks great Frenchie! And I love that font you have for title BTW.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Actually, forget what I said about the rocks, compared to the size of the buildings they're good. The more I look at this the more I like it.
It looks loads better already Frenchie!
The warmer colours look nice and the little details you've added really start to bring it all together. The thicker arch of the bridge makes it clearer it's not shadow now too, though it still irks me slightly. I think it could be the way the isometric view of the bridge blends with the top-down river edges, which perhaps decreasing the curve a bit could help.
Anyway, as I said, a vast improvement already. Nicely done!
JOSIAH, I think I'll do the smaller stepping stones anyways - they'll add some eye candy. I've also tried a line and bit of grunge styling for the roads on bottom right side of map - how does that look? Do you have any map references for grass texturing? I know J. Edwards does some insanse (INSANE) grass, but I don't think would suit this style. (Don't know!)
Adjusted color of waterwheel splash. Also, did a simple layer blending option (Drop Shadow) with some brush touching-up and roof shading for the shadows, looks cleaner in my opinion.
Thank you Arsheeh! The font is called Cinzel Decorative. I'm an absolute font-fanatic! Any critiques?
GLS, adjusted shadow still not happy with it. Maybe some brainstorming? I'll be on the hunt for some references to bridge shadows in top-down city maps - especially slanted ones (since the bridge is intended to slope downwards from the E. Bank to the W. Bank)
Also added a small little leaf accessory and adjusted the title of the map.
Also added some apples to the Orchard - which do you guys like more - the more scaled-down version of the top row or the more cartoony, in-your-face apples of the bottom row?
STILL NEED TO:
Tighten up, rework elevations for left and top sides of map, compass, soften up / scrutinize the river shadings, fill the void on the top right of the map - maybe some flavor text? Thank you guys for you input, loving this process - small update today with maybe a delay till the weekend because of some schoolwork.
Getting better everytime! Josiah's suggestion to remove the thick road lines definitely has worked, though I'd tidy up those small little white edges here and there. I like the leaf at the corner of your key, and like the deeper red for the font too. Your shadowing of the trees looks good (you missed the ones between the houses though) and makes the map feel more complete.
A few pointers:
Your bridge looks more realistic now too, though perhaps you could still keep a slight curve for the bridge arch (sorry for being so nitpicky about this bridge). Also going back to the shadowing, it seems you've changed your shadowing style for the buildings, which whilst it does look pretty good, it is different to how you've done the trees, so I'd just pick one style or the other.
As for the test border for the path, I think I prefer it borderless (well, with the shadowed edges like at the top), but feel free to try out your new style on the path if you want to.
Oh, and both sets of apples work, but maybe the bigger ones slightly more though perhaps not as big as some of them.
No worries for the delays, I have plenty of Uni work that always gets in the way of my map making. Though sometimes it's the other way round.
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