The Argent Sea - Digital Version

[jshoer]

Hi July, welcome to the guild!

One thing I had to get used to doing on digital maps, even when I was coloring a photograph of a physical map, was adding a background paper or canvas texture. That would really help blend things together; otherwise I think purely digital maps end up looking like there's artificially blank space separating different elements. The right texture could also enhance the "mistakes" you injected, more than varying opacity on brushes does. I'd suggest experimenting a little with different texture images and different layer blending styles on them.

[July Finn]

Hi July, welcome to the guild!

One thing I had to get used to doing on digital maps, even when I was coloring a photograph of a physical map, was adding a background paper or canvas texture. That would really help blend things together; otherwise I think purely digital maps end up looking like there's artificially blank space separating different elements. The right texture could also enhance the "mistakes" you injected, more than varying opacity on brushes does. I'd suggest experimenting a little with different texture images and different layer blending styles on them.

Yeah there is a paper texture on this, but it's quite subtle and I accidentally masked it off from the outer area beyond the border. I tried to keep it subtle because I may at some point have this map printed on some large vegetarian parchment that I have, and I wanted to have a decent idea of what it would look like. If I end up using this more commercially at some point I'll definitely crank up the paper texture and probably play around with a little less subtle weathering as well.

[jshoer]

I tried to keep it subtle because I may at some point have this map printed on some large vegetarian parchment that I have

Ooh -- that makes sense, and definitely post a picture if you do that! I bet it'll look great.