[WIP] Wörld of Metal

[Ilanthar]

Fun concept! I like your water and general land shapes. I'm less fond of the forests and I think they would look better with more trunks (and thiner ones).

[Rongar]

Oh, hey! Now that's a load of comments. Thank you, everyone!

@ChickPea: Thanks! Yeah, I think it makes sense to enlarge the landmass to the borders when there's so much water. I actually did it because once again I was running out of land to work on and I didn't want to enlarge the canvas yet again. 6000x4000 is pretty darn huge already and my computer isn't exactly powerful. The land shape is pretty much done, but I'm thinking about moving the skull island and some of its' surroundings to the top left. I don't want to single it out too much, but I don't want to "ruin" the guitar shape either. However, I think it could help fill the empty area in the corner. If that doesn't work out I might put the legend there. Is it even called legend? You know, the map symbology like distances and whatnot. Anyway, thank you for your comment.

@Abu Lafia: Danke, haha. I don't worry too much about it being cheesy. The whole metal universe has great potential for making fun of the cheesy-ness (Brütal Legend, anyone?), and that's one of the reasons why I love it so much. But you didn't possibly think I would not include moshpits?

@Mouse: Thank you kindly!

@DanielHasenbos: Thanks! Yeah, the forests; I'm usually more of a satellite maps kind of guy, this hand-drawn style is very much unknown territory to me and I'm not good at drawing, especially not with a mouse. :/ But I tried to make them look less flat and will continue to try and enhance them further.

@GLS: Thank you for the compliment. A guitar is great for anything, though.

@Ilanthar: Thanks! Yep, the forests are a top priority right now. I have already raised the number of tree trunks and made them thinner. And I think that was a good idea, generally speaking.


Thanks again, everyone. Your comments are much appreciated and helpful. So, since the forests have been criticized so much, I've tried to de-flatten them (well, "it") by running a bunch of filters, doing a color overlay, simulating light & shadows, etc. Here's what I got so far:

OLD:


NEW:


The difference isn't exactly huge, but I think it's better now. The question is: Yay or nay? Or "Better, but ..."?

I'm not happy with the tree trunks yet, I think they're too regular and "tidy". Which is no wonder though, it's actually a pattern (I'm lazy ^^). I might draw them by hand at some point but they do for now.

That aside, let me know what you think, please.

[EDIT] Quick update, just decorative stuff, though. I'd normally do that towards the end, but ... *shrugs*

- moved the skull island to the top left, as mentioned earlier, and I kinda like it better that way (it even looks like someone is holding the guitar ) I'll have to redo the water waves though, the part where the island used to be is broken - I just cleaned up the area real quick to see how it looks.
- added a provisional frame for the legend (nothing too fancy, but I do like the simplicity.)



Note: I'll also redo all the text in Krita as that gives better results. Right now it looks terribly washed out, especially the lore paragraph.

Regards,

~~Rongar

[Diamond]

Those forests are about 300% better. They really complement the mountains now.

[Ilanthar]

Yup, I second Diamond, those forests are way better !

[DarkInfinity]

The difference isn't exactly huge, but I think it's better now. The question is: Yay or nay? Or "Better, but ..."?

The difference is huge. Definitely better.

This is pretty awesome. Very nice concept. The skull the guitar, obvious enough but not so obvious that it's over done. I like it.

[DanielHasenbos]

Dude, the difference IS huge! The forest look much better now!

[ThomasR]

Fun idea and the forests do look way better now.

[Rongar]

Thank you, everyone! Your comments are really encouraging. And you know what? This hand drawn, kind of cartoon-ish style is really starting to grow on me. I've still been working on the forests, but in a different spot on the map. Here's a preview. Please keep in mind that the area is still unfinished, I just want to show the forest progress real quick.



As you probably noticed, I dropped the tree trunks, I didn't like them the way they were in the first two previews. So instead of those I'm just going with a distorted drop shadow and I think that's enough to avoid having the forests look like they are floating. What say you?

Oh, and there's one other thing I have to tell you. I hate to say it, but ... I changed the layout of the land mass again. You know, that one thing I said yesterday about the skull making it look like someone's holding the guitar really got me thinking, so I moved the skull around a bit and ended up pretty much in the middle. And while I was looking at it, I remembered something. A poster my brother had in his room when we were younger. Does anyone of you know who Eddie is? The mascot from Iron Maiden? Either way, *this* is the poster that sprung to mind. Notice the posture? Welllllllll ...



I'm sorry (no I'm not, haha), but I just couldn't miss this opportunity. I didn't want to make new land mass out of it, and I wanted to keep it subtle, so I made it a part of the ocean - like some sort of shallow water or reefs. I've also added a few more islands to the skull so that it looks like hair flowing around while head banging. Too obvious or nah?

PS: I had to enlarge the canvas yet again, by the way, which means I'll have to redo the border. That's also the reason why there is one larger rivet in the bottom right corner messing it up a little, haha.

[Rongar]

Well, I'm a bit lost. I've decided to turn Heaven (now called Valhalla) on the right hand side into a floating island. So I created an upside down brush pipe of the mountains and brushed away, colored it brown and added a big, distorted drop shadow. The question is, does it even work like that? I know I have some more shading to do and the black land outline and possibly some other stuff is broken here and there, but before I go on and clean up this whole mess, I'd like to hear your opinion about it. Am I on the right path here? Does it look like the island is floating? And if it doesn't (or even if it does) what can I do to improve on it? I've added some basic clouds and a very, VERY basic waterfall, and I think that helps to put things into perspective. Any other ideas?

All in all I haven't done much work on the other parts yet, but here are the key changes since last WIP anyway:

- enlarged the skull as it looked a bit small in comparison
- new land texture
- improved the coast line by simplifying it and giving it a thinner outline, erased some of the small cluster islands (it was a bit too busy on the eye.)
- some more mountains for testing purpose


Thanks in advance!

~~Rongar

[Mouse]

That's pretty excellent. Yes - it looks great

The only thing about the floating island at all is that the waterfalls need to thin out and vaporise a little less suddenly, maybe?