World Map - Unnamed

[Rittmeister_Krefeld]

loving it. Just one thing i find a bit jarring it the strength and clarity of the trees trunks and the sharp black dots between the bottom center two forests. Maybe make the gray, or a little blurred. but repeat loving it.

[Hustle]

loving it. Just one thing i find a bit jarring it the strength and clarity of the trees trunks and the sharp black dots between the bottom center two forests. Maybe make the gray, or a little blurred. but repeat loving it.

Thanks for the feedback! Yea, those dots were my attempt at a clear-cut area near that small village, but I'm afraid it didn't come across as intended. I'll have to mess with that area a bit, as well as blurring the tree trunks.

A quick 1pt. Gaussian blur over the entire Forest layer managed to cut down on the sharpness of the trunks a bit without damaging the linework of the canopy. I may use that once the layer is completed.

How do these trees compare to the previous ones, in your opinion? Small difference, but hopefully noticeable.

[Josiah VE]

Those forests and mountains are looking great!

[Mouse]

Hey Hustle

This is now looking pretty terrific

[Rittmeister_Krefeld]

Much better! But now looking at it, maybe lete the first try from the sides. There is no "overhang" on the forest But that is being really nitpicking great work! Inspiting even. How did you do the forest? all drawn by hand?

[Hustle]

Many thanks again, Mouse and Josiah!

Rittmeister, another good point! Part of the struggle I'm having here is that this is my first time trying pretty much all these styles of drawing, so I appreciate the critique; often times it's something I didn't realize myself.

Everything here is hand drawn by mouse. The coastline was randomized a bit through Filters to make it more jagged, but all else is being done in GIMP. Outlines are mostly the Ink tool with Smooth Stroke enabled and a drawing angle that helps reflect current light angles.

I'm treating all my colors as separate layers so I can toggle them after shading the original layers correctly, usually by using a low opacity black Airbrush.

[Pananacakes]

Not to start a fight or something but I rather liked the forests better before the blur. Crisper edges match the overall look better, and make sense to me if it's supposed to be cartoonish.

[Hustle]

Perhaps I'll duplicate the layer toward the end and try it both ways. It might look different when more of the map is covered I suppose.

[Hustle]

Ok, Guild. I request your assistance and input.

Here we have the latest WiP of this Inner Sea and Strait region. I am just about finished with the southern portion of the map, and before I move across the Strait, I'm working on coloring Population features.

The features themselves are as follows:

Castle/Castled City:


Tower/Fortress:


Walled City:


Unwalled City/Village:


Ruin:


For the icons themselves, I hand drew them at the pixel level then blurred them by 1 px to give it a softer look on the map. I'm fairly happy with them overall.

As of now, I'm focused on coloring the Unwalled City/Village icons, but whatever method I decide on here will apply to the other icons as well. I have a few options in my mind and would like feedback on these and others. Chime in!

Should I color the roofs only, or the whole structure/building? I'm afraid everything will fall into the noise of the colorful background if I do the latter.

If I only color the roofs, should I stick to one color per icon, or perhaps two? I've tried both methods (former on the west, latter on the east).

Should colors be indicative of fealty/allegiance or just aesthetic?

Long post, but an important one!

[Rittmeister_Krefeld]

Looking great again! I like the idea of the colours representing fealty/allegiance. I might tone down the colour a bit though, the red looks very bright to me.
keep up the excellent work