The Twin Kingdoms

[Caenwyr]

Hi all!

Below you will find the finished Twin Kingdoms map (or for those who like their map titles more elaborate: "A Comprehensive Map of the Kingdoms and Principalities of Aran & Ilan"). Not my first map of this region, but I believe it's the best yet. Took me a beastly amount of time too!

The terrain was created in the form of a hand-drawn DEM file with 16 grey levels, which I then eroded and smoothed down in GeoControl (with innumerable tweaks in Wilbur) to 256 grey levels. This in itself took a tremendous amount of time, but I got the result I wanted so that's something 😁.

All the other work - the gradients and the rivers, the borders and the icons, the labeling and the sidebar - were done in Photoshop with the help of my sturdy little Bamboo tablet.

The last tool I used, and by far the most important, is ... well... you guys! While the map is still far from perfect, it would have been far worse off if I hadn't listened to your constructive critique and suggestions. Far more than any other tool it were those that helped me get to this point - modest as it is. So, a sincere thank you, to every one of you that helped get this map from start to finish.

The text in the sidebar is Dutch-only, but if you're really curious, you can always check out the WIP thread, where I kept the text in English until the one-but-last update.

Nothing more to say I guess, so here it is:

[Ilanthar]

As I said during your WIP, I prefer the charm and fantasy style of your previous version. That said, the work on those mountains is indeed impressive and you did a great job on this new version. An excellent map by all means.

[Francissimo]

I can feel the passion you put in this map when i look at it. The relief is really smooth and nice at a global view. I'm a bit less fan when you zoom in, but for a map of this size it's an amazing result, must have take hours and hours with wilbur for such a result with an hand drawn DEM. The rivers work really well for me too, your tablet was surely usefull at this point, the shape of rivers is perfect!
Have some rep, this map deserves some!

[Sezess]

Nederlands is mijn favoriete taal (not sure if I used proper grammar on that). So I automatically like this.

[Caenwyr]

I can feel the passion you put in this map when i look at it. The relief is really smooth and nice at a global view. I'm a bit less fan when you zoom in, but for a map of this size it's an amazing result, must have take hours and hours with wilbur for such a result with an hand drawn DEM. The rivers work really well for me too, your tablet was surely usefull at this point, the shape of rivers is perfect!
Have some rep, this map deserves some!

You make me blush! I know what you mean with the zoom-in remark - perhaps in some future project I might tone down the terrain a bit, at least in the non-mountainous areas. But not for now. I'm off to new horizons!

Nederlands is mijn favoriete taal (not sure if I used proper grammar on that). So I automatically like this.

Thanks Sezess! Your Dutch was perfect, by the way. I'm glad the language turns out to be a selling point!

[Caenwyr]

As I said during your WIP, I prefer the charm and fantasy style of your previous version. That said, the work on those mountains is indeed impressive and you did a great job on this new version. An excellent map by all means.

Thanks a bunch, Ilanthar! Means a lot, especially from a guy with your impressive skill set.

[Vhey]

I like the use of the sidebar. Beautiful map.

[ChickPea]

Fantastic map! Have some well-deserved rep.

[saria]

Amazing colors, this is suchhhh an attractive map. I'm also with everyone else- sidebar is fantastic!!

[Caenwyr]

Thank you guys for your fantastic comments! It really is good to know you like it - no work for nothing then .


Also, I've been giving a fair amount of thought to the zoom issue Francissimo referred to. It's true that the map looks better if you watch it on, say, 70% instead of a 100% zoom. This has led me to think maybe I should've slightly downscaled the finished online version - while keeping the full-res for printing purposes. This would give you something like this:





I don't think you loose a lot of information (if any) at this size. Everything is still legible, but the grittiness at full size has been eliminated. And this by scaling down! The world has gone mad indeed