Les Basses-Brumes

[Gadiouka]

Hey!

This one only took me a few days, I'm slowly curbing my mapmaking frenzy And I'm starting to get used to the digital tools as well, which is motivating.

The process:

This one is the largest, heaviest map I ever made. It also involved less drawing, and more captioning and layering.

I started by drawing on paper the main shapes and border, and then photographed the whole to process it with Gimp. It was the easiest and most rewarding step, choosing the colors, etc etc.
Then I switched to Inkscape, and... well, I'd better stop ranting about vector graphics and Inkscape UX I'm slowly taming this beast and getting familiar with its commands, so it's a good thing.

I wanted this map to be simple and tried to follow the 17th-18th century style with toned down colors, discrete mountains/forests lay out, italic cursive and simple cartouche.

The story:

I made this map because I needed it in order to carry on with the novel I'm writing. It represents the Basse-Brumes (Lower-Mist?) one of the nine provinces of the Novestat, a kind of federal state. West of it lies the Stasis, sometimes called "the dead province" or "the sleeping one" by the people living next to it. It's a place in which everything is petrified, neither alive or dead. Everything that once lived in this place is now like stone, and everything that enters it suffers the same fate. The reason of this strange curse is unclear, and with time, people just accepted it. Besides, the neighbouring lands are no lords property, everyone may settle there and make a living without being burdened with taxes. The border area is quite populated, until one day the curse starts to spread. And then my story begins










Thanks for your attention!

[Ilanthar]

Nice to see the land(s) around your town .
It's a very fine map. I enjoy this kind of historical and very clean, legible style. The cities in particular are great.

If I had a (minor) nitpick, it would be about the mountains. The line is very large and a bit blurry compared to the other elements, which is a bit disturbing.

[Gadiouka]

Thanks for your feedback Ilanthar!
You're absolutely right about the mountains, they were originally drawn on paper then colored with Gimp, so it's pure raster... and I couldn't find a way to vectorise them properly, so I just gave up. One solution would be to overpaint them with Inkscape, but then I would loose that blurry/watercolor look I wanted to keep. But as it stands, I'm not at all happy with it, so I might try a few things when the courage to rework this piece comes back

[Warlin]

Nice style, Gadiouka. To work on your novel, it' s allready just fine, very effective.
If you want to improve your style, you need to choose which tools si better for you (vector with inkscape or pixel with The Gimp). For me I use Inkscape only for labels, roads and frame. And all my drawings are done with The Gimp. You need not to mix scan with various size : the lines aren't homogenous.
Keep up on your good work but be carefull, some of us came to cartography to improve their writings but never went back to it...
Cheers,
Warlin.

[Gadiouka]

Nice style, Gadiouka. To work on your novel, it' s allready just fine, very effective.
If you want to improve your style, you need to choose which tools si better for you (vector with inkscape or pixel with The Gimp). For me I use Inkscape only for labels, roads and frame. And all my drawings are done with The Gimp. You need not to mix scan with various size : the lines aren't homogenous.
Keep up on your good work but be carefull, some of us came to cartography to improve their writings but never went back to it...
Cheers,
Warlin.

Thanks for your advices Warlin, they're precious!
I basically use the same process as you: gimp for the drawing, inkscape for the labels etc, but here I started from a paper drawing, and had to digitalize it the rough way (I have no scanner), so my mountains already suffered the transfer... Ideally, I should have drawn them directly with Gimp, but I'm not comfortable with the mouse... I'll keep practising to avoid this mistake for the next projects!

Thanks again for the tips!

[Kellerica]

I like the overall look of this. The colours feel very authentic to me, and I like the way the trees are drawn. The thing that sticks out to me are the sigils of the surrounding lands - they all look OK on their own right, but are very different styles which makes them look a little inconsistent. It's not a huge issue, but it makes the whole a bit less harmonious.

Nice map all and all!

[Arimel]

Very clean! Really nice map!

[- JO -]

Beautiful map ! I love the whole design... Especially the way you draw differently between the main country and the countries around (moutains...), and the distinctive elements of those countries too ! The labels are nice too, very consistent with the whole map

[Gadiouka]

Thanks Jo, Arimel, Kellerica!

You're right about the sigils Kellerica, I'm not completely happy with them... I'll maybe try something else, like emblazoning them onto a shield or something. If I make any progress, I'll post it on the WIP thread