New G.I.M.P map. Tips or constructive critisism please!

[Theseus]

. Tolkien style map made with GIMP. tips please.

[XCali]

Hi!

Ah! A fellow gimp user. Hehe. Good program.

Now, for what you are going for I can give a few pointers for now.

If your land is on a different layer, then right click on the land layer, choose Alpha to Select. Then you have your land in a selection, cool. Next, take a cloudy random brush, put the opacity to about 15-25%. Apply jitter in the Tool options on the left, this would cause a more random effect for the brush. Use a black or a dark brown color.
Now, having all that and still with the selection. Create a layer just above the land layer. Now, you start clicking around the edge of the land to give it a sloping feel. There are a few maps in my Personal Maps album that will give you an idea.

Your text is another thing. It disappears over the black objects on the map. So, add the text, Alpha to selection. Create a layer below the text. Throw a relatively light color into the selection by dragging the color to it. Then click to get No selection(Selection tab: None). Go to filters and go to Blur. Pick Gausian blur and then type in 5 to 15. You play with it.
This will give a bit of light blurred color behind the text to make it stand out over the other black objects. It is just one way to do it.

Hope it helps a bit.

[Theseus]

Thank you!

[Theseus]

A few edits to the map.

[XCali]

The idea was there, though not quite. The sea overlaps mess with the effect.

Anyway, I don't normally do this. But, here you go. This is what I was pointing towards. (Use it or not, your choice)



And the black landmass I used to get the alpha to selection to do it. (I know the lake is missing, I forgot that till the end. )




Regarding the text... Hmm, let me think. I think you have to GROW your selection a few points and the repeat the steps I said in the previous post and then see how that works. Map making is a lot of experimenting and keeping what works.

[AlfansosRevenge]

Try using some blend modes! Since your "parchment" has some texture to it, the features of your map could benefit from that texture as well. By setting the features and the text to the Overlay mode, you'll notice that some of the texture from the paper is transferred to the blended layers. Depending your personal taste, you can then duplicate the layers that have your features and the text. Having 2 or 3 copies of the Overlay layers will make those features darker while still representing the texture below. This can be further tweaked by changing the opacities on the blended layers.

One more tip: add some variation to your features. Given that this is a small map with relatively few features, creating some more versions of the trees, mountains, and hills will produce a more natural feel. For example, the trees along the bottom edge of your map form neat lines of trees that have clearly been copied. Reusing assets is very helpful and can save a lot of time, however, grouping copied assets in obvious lines or pattern will drawn the eye away from more important features. One solution is simply to move these assets around in order to make the patterns stand out less. Another solution would be to draw or insert more types of each feature to increase variation. You could maybe even create forests out of types of trees (i.e. pine forests, deciduous forests, etc.). By creating specific forests, you can use the same asset for every tree in the forest. This will increase consistency and will let the viewer infer that there are distinct differences between each type of forest.

I hope these tips help or inspire something!

[delguidance]

Maybe add white streaks to your text so the part that overlaps with terrain still stands out. Like if the map maker wrote in one color of chalk and then hi-lited it with another color.

Otherwise nice map. Good work.