Sketch 1: My dear Arramatapo...

[Mouse]

I've been messing around with making my own textures, and decided to do something with one of them...

This is a letter received by carrier pigeon by Arramatapo - our erstwhile hero-to-be. Here he has unravelled the tightly folded map and smoothed it out on the kitchen table...



I have only done the background and the letter part of it just yet. The rest of the space will be a map of the journey Arramatapo must undertake to rescue his father.

What do you think? Worth carrying on with, or just a whim?

[Chashio]

Definitely worth carrying on with.

[kacey]

I'm interested to see where you go with this, I love a map with a story. Definitely Carry on, who doesn't like a flight of whimsy.

[Mouse]

LOL! Ok then, I will... but first I must go and dine with my mother. It being Sunday and all

[Mouse]

I've only had time to consider a couple of comments made over on the Profantasy forum - about the handwriting looking a bit too formal, and the crisp clean-ness of the paper.

Added one coffee mug stain (which I made myself), and one spill stain - a simple polygon shape with a few sheet effects. Changed the font of the writing.

Will do some more map tomorrow now



Do you think I should add colour? I don't know how realistic that would look - considering this is a desperate 'help me' type of map.

[kacey]

I actually much prefer the type in the first version, to me it looks like more of an older style...if that makes sense. The new text is more of a modern hand writing to me, there's something about it that reminds me of the notes my mom used to write for me when I was late for school. Sorry to be blunt, but I really don't like the new text, it kills it for me.

I do however like the stains, Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I'm still amazed that you do all you're work in cc3. I can only imagine what you'd be able to do if you ever decided to give photoshop a go.

I think a splash of colour might look nice, I don't know what you're able to do with you're software, but I think a water colour looking wash might look nice.

[Mouse]

I actually much prefer the type in the first version, to me it looks like more of an older style...if that makes sense. The new text is more of a modern hand writing to me, there's something about it that reminds me of the notes my mom used to write for me when I was late for school. Sorry to be blunt, but I really don't like the new text, it kills it for me.

I do however like the stains, Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I'm still amazed that you do all you're work in cc3. I can only imagine what you'd be able to do if you ever decided to give photoshop a go.

I think a splash of colour might look nice, I don't know what you're able to do with you're software, but I think a water colour looking wash might look nice.

You've no need to apologise, Kacey. I appreciate honesty. The only time I don't is when a comment is made purely to be offensive or abusive, neither of which you have ever been with me.

The handwriting really is a matter of taste it seems, since there was a milder reaction against the first font over at Profantasy. Maybe I should do alternative versions?

Though this is a CC3 map, the wooden table and paper textures were made in Genetica, also the isolated coffee stain symbol (which wasn't easy to separate onto a transparent background, but I did it anyway). The other stain is just a blank coloured shape I drew, with an Edge Fade Inner sheet effect (shifting from about 30% transparency at the outer edge to 10% transparency at the centre over the space of 100 map units). There is also a Blend Effect applied to that sheet which burns the colour into the paper rather than it just sitting on top of the underlying texture.

I'm working on a new very simple 'drawn by a farmer or blacksmith' sort of style - nothing elaborate

I might once have given PS a go, but not now that the company have made their software more expensive to use than the cost of running a family car over here in the UK (and that's including maintenance, annual road tests, road tax, car insurance and petrol). As a single person with occasional low paid work I can only afford to run one car, so you see - I'm not likely to ever hire PS - not unless I become a rich and successful author, by which time I am far more likely to have bought the much anticipated Windows version of Affinity instead, since its a one time purchase and a tenth of the price

Never been able to get on with GIMP. It just doesn't work the way I've become used to handling more mainstream raster software, like my ancient version of Corel Photopaint.

A water colour wash would be a relatively simple new texture to create in Genetica and import - now that I've worked out how to isolate transparent stains like the coffee mug ring. Thanks for the idea

[ChickPea]

The first font screams Tolkien to me. The second one is OK but it doesn't entirely say 'fantasy', as kacey mentions. Would you perhaps consider a third choice somewhere in the middle? Maybe waste some time on dafont.com? Or, alternatively, I rather like this site for fonts. How about Henry Morgan Hand?

[Mouse]

LOL! That's because the first one is MS 'Tolkien'.

I prefer the Tolkien to the second one, however, which I agree is rather too modern for the age of dragons and such.

I had a look at that site, and there were some very interesting, unusual and rather beautiful fonts there. The one you like is very attractive and certainly reminiscent of... I don't know... sea logs of the eighteenth century, perhaps? But I think it might be just a little too beautiful for a ham-fisted explorer from the dark ages. A magician, philosopher, poet or royal, maybe...

Thanks for the link, ChickPea. I will certainly be revisiting that site, and may well make use of that Henry Morgan Hand font in another map - maybe a nautical adventure

[Mouse]

I spent too long looking at fonts this afternoon to do much more than update the map and add a bit more to the paper. The new font is Benegraphic, from dafont.com.