Vanaheim (WIP)

[Naima]

Greetings, Cartographers.

It's been an Age since I posted anything, but life circumstances have recently changed and afforded me the opportunity of more time to work on personal projects instead of solely professional ones.

I went back to the Vanaheim project I'd posted previously on and decided to rework it from the ground up...again...this time focusing more on a small-continent sized area instead of an entire planet offering. This was primarily due to two main reasons. The first was my increasing frustration at being able to illustrate landforms like mountain ranges, rivers, relief and elevation that were anywhere close to 'realistic'. So, I decided to focus instead on using some real-world data as the base. The second, and perhaps more importantly, was the realization that I didn't really need an entire planet to tell the 'story' that I wanted to tell.

The results are below. I've spent far too much time tweaking this base map, but it's finally approaching something I feel is representative of the overall feel I was going for. The next steps will be to focus at the regional level to start adding rivers, roads, cities, etc., and going back and cleaning up the base map with any changes/irregularities that pop up along the way. Any and all comments, criticisms, and suggestions are welcome!


For the images below, the first is a resized view showing the entirety of the continent. The second is a zoomed-in portion of the center of the map at full size, which I believe should be a bit over 200 miles across.

Programs/tools used for this map: Adobe Photoshop; Wacom Cintiq 22 Graphic Tablet

Looks pretty good, you used satellite heightmaps or assembled images?

[Hawksguard]

Looks pretty good, you used satellite heightmaps or assembled images?

Currently, the images consist of about 20 separate layers, some of which are based on 100-meter resolution raster data, although only one (satellite imagery) is present in its original form. Some of the other layers are based on the data; for example, the oceans are recolored heightmap info and I used a sliced-elevation layer to determine the coast- and snowlines. The bulk of the layers, though, are hand-painted adjustment layers with various photoshop effects that focus on vegetation and climactic indicators. Probably the most 'fun' layer to do was the relief, because I didn't have any raster data that was just relief, so I had to derive it by manipulating several other layers and do lots of manual adjustment in areas to make it look the way I wanted.

One of my basic goals for this map was to have a solid base that would look good at whatever 'zoom' level I wanted...with areas of crisp detail that didn't look faded or blurry.

[Naima]

Currently, the images consist of about 20 separate layers, some of which are based on 100-meter resolution raster data, although only one (satellite imagery) is present in its original form. Some of the other layers are based on the data; for example, the oceans are recolored heightmap info and I used a sliced-elevation layer to determine the coast- and snowlines. The bulk of the layers, though, are hand-painted adjustment layers with various photoshop effects that focus on vegetation and climactic indicators. Probably the most 'fun' layer to do was the relief, because I didn't have any raster data that was just relief, so I had to derive it by manipulating several other layers and do lots of manual adjustment in areas to make it look the way I wanted.

One of my basic goals for this map was to have a solid base that would look good at whatever 'zoom' level I wanted...with areas of crisp detail that didn't look faded or blurry.

thaks but what you mean by sliced-elevation layer?

[Hawksguard]

thaks but what you mean by sliced-elevation layer?

Sorry, I might be using the wrong terminology. It's a map with a range of elevation contours represented by a single color, instead of a blend or gradient. Below is an example of what I mean.