Illustrated Maps - Paper textures on top or below?

[Tiana]

Yeah, I hear you. It's literally a different thing each time. This has mainly been a problem for one repeat customer who wants his maps to look EXACTLY the same each time, and the first result was not very modular at all, so they always end up being convoluted hacked stacks of barely editable mush that have been destroyed from their original artistic potential because it wasn't exactly like the horrid choices I made in 2013... which MUST BE REPEATED EXACTLY THE SAME... (cries)

Generally if someone new requests "something like X map" I say OKAY and then just copy the color scheme, font choice, and whether that one had a fancy or basic compass, fancy or basic border, etc, and it's never been a problem if the textures aren't identical, because I can always throw a tint over the entire map to make it like the original one's color scheme. I never try to explain to them why it might be a problem and I have never tried to explain to that repeat client why it's such a pain trying to get his requests just so. All they need is their art.

But yeah, wizard magic, especially if I merged for file size, which happened a lot in my earlier work. Now, I'm more likely to merge, and then save to a new file, so I have the old stack available just not in my working file anymore. That opens up a new bucket of worms, I'll have like, 3-12 files for one map result. T_T But it does at least improve performance on my machine and leave older steps checkable if I need to try repeat what I did. Also sometimes I screen record, so I can see what exactly was done.

[TimetoDraw]

This! For most of the time, I have no idea how I've done the things I've done on maps, which can get kind of awkward when someone asks me to do a commission "in the exact style as your previous XX map" and I'm there trying to explain why I might not be able to do it...

Hahah, this is quite funny. My continent map I felt like I wasn't quite in control of the process and was just along for the ride when adding textures and painting on top. Glad it's more of a common thing. I'll be ready to experiment much more with my regional maps.

For a map so illustrative, I needed to be in more control of the process as there's a lot of time spent hand painting it. My colours, however, were lacking and as a result, I had to go research up on Gamut masks. How to restrict my colour choices and choose harmonious colours. So I'm really pleased with how it turned out, there's only a few textures added to give it a look like its from an older book.