(WIP) Arch City of Nessa'Mor

[XCali]

Hello!

Thought I'd take a wack at the ocean while I am at it.

[Chashio]

I like this.

I might suggest lightening the grass a bit, as light tends to brighten flat, horizontal surfaces a lot, but this is pretty cool. Waterfalls are really difficult to make look right, and harder when they're right on the edge of the picture like that, but I think it reads ok for the most part. Nice work on this. It has a very interesting, epic feel to it.

[Mouse]

I really like your cliffs

Since you are working on the ocean, how about fading it out more at the edge?

[XCali]

I like this.

I might suggest lightening the grass a bit, as light tends to brighten flat, horizontal surfaces a lot, but this is pretty cool. Waterfalls are really difficult to make look right, and harder when they're right on the edge of the picture like that, but I think it reads ok for the most part. Nice work on this. It has a very interesting, epic feel to it.

Thanks!
It is a definitely a change of pace figuring out how to tackle this type of map.
A few questions though, with the light, do you mean light the grass as a whole or just areas of it? (Though, I'm thinking of putting a forest up top and maybe a castle.)

And, I just started with the falls today. But, if you would recommend a change in it, what would it be?

(Again thanks)

I really like your cliffs

Since you are working on the ocean, how about fading it out more at the edge?

Thanks a bunch!

Hmmm, I'm not sure I understand what you mean... Can you elaborate on it, please?

[Chashio]

Thanks!
It is a definitely a change of pace figuring out how to tackle this type of map.
A few questions though, with the light, do you mean light the grass as a whole or just areas of it? (Though, I'm thinking of putting a forest up top and maybe a castle.)

And, I just started with the falls today. But, if you would recommend a change in it, what would it be?

(Again thanks)

I love the look and challenge of perspective-type maps
I mean all of the grass; as a plane/flat surface it would perhaps read better next to the lighter ground areas you have... not quite that light, maybe just half or so toward the lighter value of the other flat ground. Under heavy forest it would obviously be shaded and what you have currently would work well.

For the falls, I would say... soften the hard edge at the top to suggest the falls have a bit more force flowing over the edge of the cliff instead of just dropping straight down in a trickle... there's usually a bit of a curve as water flows off the edge of stuff, but you probably won't need much.
Also, you might pull the bottom left edge of the falls more to the right, and shade a bit of the cliff to the left of the falls where it curves away from the sunlight so it looks like it goes back in behind the fall [especially toward the bottom, to give it some breathing room as the fall disappears into the hole]. As it is, your falls appear to hug the shape of the cliff a lot and these adjustments should help it read better, unless you want the water to be a thin sheet racing down a steep slope... which could be interesting as well.

Let me know if that didn't clear things up.

Edit: Also, take a look at some of the waterfalls in Iceland for some similar examples of what I'm talking about on that second point... particularly Skogafoss, Svartifoss, and Haifoss.

[XCali]

I love the look and challenge of perspective-type maps
I mean all of the grass; as a plane/flat surface it would perhaps read better next to the lighter ground areas you have... not quite that light, maybe just half or so toward the lighter value of the other flat ground. Under heavy forest it would obviously be shaded and what you have currently would work well.

For the falls, I would say... soften the hard edge at the top to suggest the falls have a bit more force flowing over the edge of the cliff instead of just dropping straight down in a trickle... there's usually a bit of a curve as water flows off the edge of stuff, but you probably won't need much.

Also, you might pull the bottom left edge of the falls more to the right, and shade a bit of the cliff to the left of the falls where it curves away from the sunlight so it looks like it goes back in behind the fall [especially toward the bottom, to give it some breathing room as the fall disappears into the hole]. As it is, your falls appear to hug the shape of the cliff a lot and these adjustments should help it read better, unless you want the water to be a thin sheet racing down a steep slope... which could be interesting as well.

Let me know if that didn't clear things up.

Edit: Also, take a look at some of the waterfalls in Iceland for some similar examples of what I'm talking about on that second point... particularly Skogafoss, Svartifoss, and Haifoss.

Thanks a lot, that is definitely useful. I tried it a bit. See if I went in the direction you prescribed.





***

One last one for today, I started a cave into the cliff,


What do you guys think?

[XCali]

On top of the morning everyone,

Today I started out with the beach. I used a photo I took a while back to get the effect. So tell me what you think.

I'm happy so far with the cave and the changes to the waterfall, but I would like your feedback on it.

The rest was just cleaning up and adding a little detail to the trees.

So here it is,

[Chashio]

That looks good, yes.
Nice sandy beach.
You even got the little wall sconces (?) in the cave!

[Mouse]

Elaborating on the water edge...

Here is a travel guide picture I borrowed from a quick Google image search to show what I mean:



I know this is a tropical beach, and the water here is very much more clear than it would be in a stormy temperate zone where there is far more sand being churned up in the water all the time, but it demonstrates reasonably well that the colour of the water tends to be transparent at the edge, allowing the colour of the beach to show through.

On most beaches the hardest line is the strand line, where the high tide pushes all the debris to the top of the beach.

Hope that helps

[XCali]

That looks good, yes.
Nice sandy beach.
You even got the little wall sconces (?) in the cave!

Thanks!
The sandy beach is made from a photo taken of clouds. And the sconces, yeah one could say that or even torches. Same difference in this regard. But thanks.

Elaborating on the water edge...
...
...
I know this is a tropical beach, and the water here is very much more clear than it would be in a stormy temperate zone where there is far more sand being churned up in the water all the time, but it demonstrates reasonably well that the colour of the water tends to be transparent at the edge, allowing the colour of the beach to show through.

On most beaches, the hardest line is the strand line, where the high tide pushes all the debris to the top of the beach.

Hope that helps

Yeah sorry, I understand the concept. hehe, didn't put two and two together.

***
Anyway, this is an EXPERIMENTAL build. I tried my hand at the ocean fading thing. (But I have to admit, I really don't know how you guys go to work with solving that(or with how to make the ocean more believable apart from waves). Maybe I'm not approaching it the right way. It is a bit of an enigma still.
The way I tried it in this build was using the same texture in different layers and selection of the land with gaussian blur and low opacity to try it. But it's not how I want it yet... As I said, a bit of an enigma.

Okay, next I tried out the forest with some shadows and then the CHOCOLATE HILLS for a bit of unique flavour. I don't know if it works or not. But this is an experimental build to try out ideas. So I'm all ears.

Have a nice day.
(P.S. I work in GIMP 2.6)