Tesset Gallí

[Caenwyr]

They're supposed to say "this is higher than the nearby coast/river, but not enough to be represented by hills or mountains". But yeah, they're not exactly perfect! They look nice in some places, but there's also places where there's definitely room for improvement. I know what to do tonight.

On a positive note, I believe I've found a way to represent dunes that pleases me! *insert southern accent* It's called stealing with yur eyes, is what it's called! *end southern accent* I'm gonna give it a try tonight, and if there's still some time, I'm also gonna do another attempt at drawing some interesting forests.

Still much to do, but this is a learning experience, so that's only good!

[Caenwyr]

Alright. I haven't been able to get too much work done, but I'd like to present my progress so far:



An overview of what's been done:

• The seas and the landmass have been coloured in. I generally like it, but I'd like to slightly de-brown the latter, especially in the non-arid environment;
• The mountains and roughly half of the hills have been shaded. They should already give you a pretty good idea of the final product, although I plan to make them blend in a little better;
• I've been working on some dune ridges in the southern half of the continent. I kinda like what I have, but I might scale down the ones in the middle - they seem rather large. I've already begin shading them as well, but I'm nowhere finished on that front;

In the works, but nothing to show just yet:

• The land squigglies (I think I'm gonna keep that word!) are currently undergoing a major overhaul. The idea is nice, but they were too evenly distributed and too numerous, as Lingon pointed out. A new version will be coming up soon. Once shaded, they should provide the terrain with some much welcomed ruggedness;

• Haven't gotten round to the forests yet, but that should get done by the next update;

Still to be started up: cities, roads, borders, labels and a nice frame to top it all off. But I'm only gonna start work on those once the things I mentioned above have been tackled. I'm already doing everything at once

[Lingon]

Looks amazing, really fond of the brown palette of the landmass (sorry! ) and the volume of the mountains. Naturally, I approve of your plan for the land squigglies too The dunes indeed seem a bit large, and too many, kind of the same problem as with the squigglies before I think. A bit fewer and a bit more randomly spread out within the deserts would look more natural and less busy, in my opinion. The ocean color makes me torn, and it depends on if you tweak the landmass tones and in what direction, but as it is now, the water looks too glowing, like it's magic water. Just a touch less saturation would help the overall color scheme, I think.

[tainotim]

Great work so far Caenwyr. I really think you are managing the style. Definitely feels like you are going for a more professional look, which is great!

However, there is one thing that I think is problematic, which separates it from looking as professional as you might intend, while cutting it close. Because I think you are cutting it so close to create a awesome style, I will try to explain it, and perhaps it might help.

There are too many patterns in your work. Patterns that would be awesome if you could break. For example the mountains. The first thing I see is that they go 1 right, 1 left, 1 right ... Same with the hills, 1 right 1 left ... Except on some occasions. The problem with this that it becomes a pattern. And that is fine, long as the viewer don't see the pattern. Why? Because in reality and in nature we can't perceive these patterns, and if the viewer can read them, then they will see the map as unnatural. Do you understand what I mean? Instead, my recommendation for you is to think about everything in your map like rivers (because your rivers to me are the most perfected part in the map). The rivers don't move randomly, but they appear to, which makes them look natural. They are long and they twist and turn with the layout of the land, they separate into smaller rivers and end with narrow tails. Try making your mountain ridges like that and see how it looks. Instead of a mountain that instantly is huge, try make your mountain meander into high peaks. Or have the high peak meander into smaller and smaller mountains. This will not only make your map more artistically pleasant, but also the scale will seem more realistic.

Do I make myself understood at all?

Hope I didn't seem to harsh or anything.

Cheers,
Tainotim

[Lingon]

There are too many patterns in your work. Patterns that would be awesome if you could break. For example the mountains. The first thing I see is that they go 1 right, 1 left, 1 right ... Same with the hills, 1 right 1 left ... Except on some occasions. The problem with this that it becomes a pattern. And that is fine, long as the viewer don't see the pattern. Why? Because in reality and in nature we can't perceive these patterns, and if the viewer can read them, then they will see the map as unnatural. Do you understand what I mean? Instead, my recommendation for you is to think about everything in your map like rivers (because your rivers to me are the most perfected part in the map). The rivers don't move randomly, but they appear to, which makes them look natural. They are long and they twist and turn with the layout of the land, they separate into smaller rivers and end with narrow tails. Try making your mountain ridges like that and see how it looks. Instead of a mountain that instantly is huge, try make your mountain meander into high peaks. Or have the high peak meander into smaller and smaller mountains. This will not only make your map more artistically pleasant, but also the scale will seem more realistic.

That… is an excellent point. Didn't even occur to me, but now, I must agree. And I must keep it in mind myself. Great explanation!

[Caenwyr]

That… is an excellent point. Didn't even occur to me, but now, I must agree. And I must keep it in mind myself. Great explanation!

Great, now I can't look at my map without seeing those mountain patterns anymore. Thanks for that, Tainotim, you ruined my map for me! Well, I guess I did, but that's a technicallity

No, you're absolutely right about the patterns, and you explained very well. The pattern seems to have been made clearer by the shading. I think I'm gonna leave my mountains and hills as they are for now, considering this is only a practice piece anyway, but I'm certainly gonna take this with me in my future endeavors (I love that expression. People don't use it enough!).

The dunes - I will probably work on those. They're not really 100% what I like anyway, so I might as well throw them out completely and build on my experience and your suggestions. I think I'm gonna draw them smaller, and spread them more randomly over the desert region. Avoiding patterns as much as I can. Obviously!

About the rivers. You wanna know how I did them? (If your reply would have been "no, not really", then don't read on!). Well, I actually transformed a copy of the map and doubled the vertical dimension; then I drew some ordinary, dancing and dashing rivers on them. I then reversed the transformation on the rivers (making them slightly thinner in horizontal sections, and giving them this perspective look), and copied them back to the original document. Tadaa! A simple trick that can save hours, especially if drawing perspective rivers isn't your thing.

[Ilanthar]

Very nice progression on this! Colors are fine. I'm not completely sure about the dunes, they have kind of a mountain effect I think.

[Caenwyr]

Alright! So I said I wouldn't tinker with the mountains anymore... and then I did .

Well, I redid some of them already, and before I go blustering on, I'd like your input! So tell me: do you like them better than the previous version? I'm especially referring to the (hopefully absent) patterns, but I did some changes to the style as well.



So be harsh, be absolutely horrible if need be, but let me know what you think

[Schwarzkreuz]

You have a precise and nice linework, the fading of the inks works well for my eye and I realy like the fine coastal features you are adding so its more deep. Try adding those at the rivers too. And about the mountains, Max used to call me out often when they look to seperated like a lot of spiky single mountains but without natural flow of a mountainrange. Try to draw in more connected rages, maybe that would improve the overall already nice style into something better`?

[Caenwyr]

Thanks for the helpful feedback, Schwarzkreuz. Vielen dank!

I'm starting to see this is actually pretty hard! No obvious patterns, but the mountains do have to look as though they belong together. It's like a game of connect-the-dots, without actually seeing the connecting lines

Anyway, I've been slaving away at those mountains since my last update, and I think I did a little better on the newer ranges (those are after all more range-y than the clusters in the south). Remountaining is still not finished, but I'm getting there.

So: update!