Map of the Twin Kingdoms of Aran and Ilan - Handdrawn

[Pixie]

I agree with the lot. Those icons seem out of place in a map where individual 3d mountains are depicted. And the mountains look good so there's no dropping that for the sake of keeping the icons - so do the forests. Again, depicted in perspective.

Try shading the "urban" areas, maybe in brown/orangy/reddish..

[gspRooster]

This is looking like a really pretty map!

[- Max -]

I'm pretty late on this one but the mountains looks way too aligned to make convincing ranges imo. Also the gap between the trunks and the forests itself is kinda odd.

[Caenwyr]

Those are some mighty tasty mountains - looking good! Something about the layout of some of your foothills forest make the tongues extending into valleys look like they're curving down instead of running up a bit into the crevices. Does that make sense, what I'm seeing?

Hi JB, You're absolutely right. The forests should curve up instead of down. I corrected that in my current update.

I agree with the lot. Those icons seem out of place in a map where individual 3d mountains are depicted. And the mountains look good so there's no dropping that for the sake of keeping the icons - so do the forests. Again, depicted in perspective.

Try shading the "urban" areas, maybe in brown/orangy/reddish..

That's actually a good idea! I'll do either that, or use a sort of simplified 3D look of a tiny city. You know what I mean: a curved wall, with a tower and a few house roofs peeping up. Or heck, maybe I just keep the icons I have, paint them bordeaux or some other archaic colour and roughen them up a bit so they fit with the style.

I'm pretty late on this one but the mountains looks way too aligned to make convincing ranges imo. Also the gap between the trunks and the forests itself is kinda odd.

Believe it or not, but I actually intended them to look like this. I tried to put some linearity in the mountain ranges in order to make them look more natural. I specifically did this in the northernmost reaches of the central spine. The southern tip of that same ridge sports a more random distribution of the mountains, and while I agree this is probably a nicer look, I'm not sure if it's a better or a worse depiction of a longitudinal range.

Maybe I'll have to redo the northern reaches after all. What do you guys think?

Oh, and here's my most recent update. Not much done, except for the correction of the eastern forest "tongues", and the addition of another hill ridge. I also changed the hill ridge north of that so the hills/small mountains are now closer together and more accurately look like hills instead of thinly spread fullscale mountains. I left the city icons out for now, I'm still thinking of a better representation.

### latest WIP ###



And as always, thanks for your comments, and keep them coming!

[Caenwyr]

Okay... I hate myself for doing this, but... Max's remark set me thinking. At first I thought he meant the linearity of the northern ridges, but after looking through some of his maps I started realising it wasn't that - I now believe he meant the border of the mountain ranges: not a single mountain jumping forward or backward, just one long line of perfectly aligned peaks. And yes, that's a bit odd indeed. So this morning before leaving for work I started redrawing the mountains from scratch... again.

Yes, I really do hate myself :p.

So here's the first result of my new and hopefully improved mountains. I realize I'll have to redo the coastline with a thinner stroke as well, but that's for when I have some more time.

### latest WIP ###



Do you like these mountains more or less than the previous iteration?

[Jalyha]

I liked the old ones, actually but... they *are* lined up really evenly, even in the new version. I didn't notice it myself at all until max said something (so blame max) but now it's bugging me.

I don't know if I'm seeing the same thing he saw, or if I'm seeing something else, but I see them... almost in boxes, more than on a line. Like there's an invisible line on the ground, telling the mountains "You shall not pass!" .... and it extends in every direction.

(I do this when I paint, too. It's like you started at the center of the range... deliberately drawing them off center... but your subconscious wouldn't let you cross that line. (Bit of a perfectionist, like me?) It's hard to see/explain it...

It's like... hmm... I wonder if I can show you...




I rarely see that in nature and I almost always do it when sketching my initial drawing... so I started drawing mountains like paint-by-numbers...

Of course, then I can't draw maps with that "hand-drawn" look... so I have to find a way past it too >.<

I think.. even if it were only a few mountains, if you could break up that area, or find a way to... idk *anchor* the mountains to the earth somehow??

Idk how you would do that though...

[Falconius]

Haha, you are enjoying that tablet Jalyha.

These mountains are looking better, really all you have to worry about is arranging them in rows or columns. Some do seem big to me for some reason, maybe because the internal line work wasn't filled in on them yet.

[Jalyha]

Haha, you are enjoying that tablet Jalyha.

These mountains are looking better, really all you have to worry about is arranging them in rows or columns. Some do seem big to me for some reason, maybe because the internal line work wasn't filled in on them yet.

I REALLY AM.

It's so... freeing ^.^


And it might just be the shading not being done on the mountains... or it could be my mind playing tricks... it's really tricky!

[Caenwyr]

Okay, how about this? Don't mind the central ridge, I only adapted the mountains in the west.

[Jalyha]

It's better

I think maybe was just the shading issue? Or did you move them too?