WIP - The Eastern shores of Ehren

[Falconius]

Definitely individual trees. Though they may compete with fine details like the rivers.

Also, I generally prefer a tonal difference for the water over a monochrome only ink look, and like what you have here. I think the map looks really good.

[kacey]

Thank’s for all the feedback on which type of trees to do, I really appreciate the help. After reading all you’re opinions I think I’ll definitely go with the single trees. It will probably take forever to do tho. I tried copy, and pasting trees to form clumps, but it just doesn’t look right, so it’s looking like I’ll have to do them all individually by hand so I might be at this for a while.

Mouse – I had a look at J.Edwards map’s, they really are beautiful, I could only hope to make something so nice.

Diamond – Thanks so much for you’re continued feedback, I really value you’re opinions as you’re map’s are some of my favourites, I admire them almost daily. I really love you’re shaded relief style mountains, and hope to try something similar if I ever get around to making another map.

Kelleri – Thank you for the nice comments. I’ll definitely take you’re advice, and reduce the size of the trees, it’s something I had been considering, so you’re opinion solidified my decision. I appreciate it.

Falconius – I was thinking the same thing about the rivers, but I plan on working on them more, the rivers right now are just a plan of where they will go, I’ll be doing them over again, hopefully I can make them look nicer, and more refined, I’m not happy with how they look right now, I was pretty lazy about getting them in.

[kacey]

I finally made a decision, and got started on the trees, but I’d really like to know what you guy’s think about the size, and colour before I move ahead with them.

I decided to cut, and paste the outlines because there so small that at print size, which is 17 by 11 inches most of the detail is lost anyway, and I figured if I do the colour on each tree by hand individually it will maybe give at least a slight variation between each one. I simply don’t have the time to do all the outlining by hand. Thinking about how long it would take to do overwhelmed me completely, and I nearly scrapped the whole thing.

I also added a slight greenish shading under each patch, I don’t know if you’ll be able to notice it, but I think it grounds them into the map a bit.

Any critique is welcome, I trust that you guy’s know better then me. I’ve never actually made it to the point of putting trees on a map, so this is a first for me.

[kacey]

I almost forgot to thank every one who gave me rep...I feel special now I don't exactly understand the rep system, but I'm sure it can't be a bad thing, so thanx.

[Eilathen]

I agree with everyone about the trees. While i am not that big a fan of those trees (the style in general. They look weird to my eyes...more like balloons or something), i dislike the other style even more (again, the style in general, not your execution of it, just to be clear!). Also, as the others said, the style of your chosen trees matches much better with the rest of your map than the other style would have.

What i do like in forests is if it is recognizable as a continuous area...that's another problem one has with the "single tree"-style. But sometimes it just can not be avoided.

About the Rep. ... if you look at a post, you can see a star-icon in the lower left-hand corner...if you click on it, it opens a little window where you can type a Rep. message and if you click "ok", you give Rep. to a user (how much depends on your own Rep., how long you're a member on CG and other such little details ).
And your map deserves all the Rep. you got...a very beautiful piece of map-work!

[Diamond]

Lovely trees! This has a real Blaeu feel to it.

You know, I was thinking about your coastlines. Now that you've got a lot of your interior elements in place, that heavy black color seems too dominant now. It might blend better with a brown overlay to match the other colors a bit more. Not TOO light, just not that dark dark black.

[kacey]

I agree with everyone about the trees. While i am not that big a fan of those trees (the style in general. They look weird to my eyes...more like balloons or something), i dislike the other style even more (again, the style in general, not your execution of it, just to be clear!). Also, as the others said, the style of your chosen trees matches much better with the rest of your map than the other style would have.

What i do like in forests is if it is recognizable as a continuous area...that's another problem one has with the "single tree"-style. But sometimes it just can not be avoided.

About the Rep. ... if you look at a post, you can see a star-icon in the lower left-hand corner...if you click on it, it opens a little window where you can type a Rep. message and if you click "ok", you give Rep. to a user (how much depends on your own Rep., how long you're a member on CG and other such little details ).
And your map deserves all the Rep. you got...a very beautiful piece of map-work!

Thanks Eilathen, I never really thought of this style of trees as little balloons, that’s kind of funny. Now that you mention it I can definitely see where you’re coming from. Every time from here on out, when I see a map with little individual trees I’ll be thinking of tiny balloons

I’m trying to put some of the trees closer together after reading you’re comment, to compensate for the appearance of a continuous area, but like you said, sometimes it just can’t be avoided. At the scale of this map I figured out that just one of those little trees could represent an entire small forest that would cover about 13 km. I don’t want too many really large areas, because those would represent forests that could take day’s or even months to get through, but there will be some, who knows what might be lurking in there.

I think they will mostly be scattered about just to represent that yes there are trees here, and not a desert or something else. I’m working on some little pine trees right now to show different climates, and I still haven’t figured out how I’ll be representing tropical areas... I’m rambling, sorry.

Thanx again, I really appreciate you’re honest opinion.

[Mouse]

You could make the trees look a bit less like balloons by making them just the tiniest bit less regular in shape. However, the more irregular you make them look the more like green flowers they will become. It really is a very difficult thing to get right if you haven't already established your own personal style.

It will come. Keep up the good work

[kacey]

Lovely trees! This has a real Blaeu feel to it.

You know, I was thinking about your coastlines. Now that you've got a lot of your interior elements in place, that heavy black color seems too dominant now. It might blend better with a brown overlay to match the other colors a bit more. Not TOO light, just not that dark dark black.

Diamond – Thanks for the link, I enjoyed looking through some of his maps this afternoon. I was definitely inspired by old maps like these when I started making this. I was specifically looking to Robert de Vaugondy’s Map of the World on Mercator projection when I did the border, I was trying to emulate the simple yet jagged lines on this map instead of using a hard round brush, and clean lines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert...gondy-1784.jpg

I also really like Herman Moll, I was inspired by his map called A new map of the North part of America claimed by France, as well. His maps are really neat because he has notes on his exploration of the land right on the maps, which I really enjoy reading.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3300.ct000677/

Of course my map has taken on a life of it’s own because I’m unable to copy the style of these map’s exactly...tho I tried.

I love the idea of making the coast a darker brown, I’ll definitely try that. I think the coast line looks a little harsh because I used a hard round brush on it, then used a custom more broken line brush for the rest as an after thought, I was just too lazy to change it. Changing the colour, like you said might help compensate for the difference in the line.

Sorry for the long post, just one question, should I also make the border, and the rest of the lines dark brown as well? Or should I leave them as they are?

[kacey]

You could make the trees look a bit less like balloons by making them just the tiniest bit less regular in shape. However, the more irregular you make them look the more like green flowers they will become. It really is a very difficult thing to get right if you haven't already established your own personal style.

It will come. Keep up the good work

Mouse – I wish I had the time to do each tree by hand. If I do this I’m gonna need a place with tiny balloons, and green flowers to occupy my three year old, I might even have to throw in a unicorn, and a chimpanzee, he’ll need to keep himself busy while I draw thousands of tiny trees because I’ll have to cancel all my plans for the next several months. If you’ve heard of a place like this let me know, because then I might hope to complete this project in the next year. I only get at most a few hours in the middle of the night to work on this...I think these tiny trees are going to kill me. This is my first time trying to do trees on a map, so I just want to get them done at this point, so I can move on to the next thing before I get overwhelmed, and quit the whole thing...Which I’ve done before...I’ve started many maps, and never made it past the trees.