WIP - Wystern Ath

[Ilanthar]

I'm glad to be a source of an inspiration as well . I see you've found your way to do forests more quickly, it's pretty convincing.

[Sidmandoo]

I'm glad to be a source of an inspiration as well . I see you've found your way to do forests more quickly, it's pretty convincing.

Thanks Ilanthar. Still working on it, but I am glad it is producing a good effect. Sometimes it is hard to tell if something works if it's just yourself looking at it.

I changed up the lakes, to make them more isometric in shape, and I added sort of a swampish area in the upper right. I put a parchment layer over the work to give it some texture. I cleaned up the border but it is still a draft of sorts. I added line art to the ground, coastlines etc. I put some very temporary markers down for places. I need to work on the river to ocean transitions on the line art. I only have like three names of places figured out, lol.

Most importantly though, I started my hand at coloring. This tends to be where I struggle, but this time around I have a layer plan that might make it easier for me to adjust and change as I go.

[Ilanthar]

Yup, always good to have other people have a look at your work.
And the coloring part is also often a difficult part for me. I tend to have multiple layers dedicated to it.

[Sidmandoo]

A lot has been going on but here is some significant amount of color work with a lot of rough edges. I beefed up the mountain range in the upper right and added snow. I had to completely rework my layers for the forest. I had a complicated set up which I simplified but then that meant I had to do a lot of close rework. I am not stoked on the forests to be honest. I imagine I will redo them to some degree. The ocean and water is coming along.

I switched over to Krita and saved a bunch of money. Its a bit less stable than PS, but the brushes and the brush mechanics are much better in my opinion, especially the blending ability. I don't do this for a living, and imagine if I did, I'd probably stick with PS, but this has been a welcome change. The learning curve was not that steep from PS.

Anyway, here is what I've got going on. Parts of it I am happy/proud of (the mountains and ocean), the forests less so, and I have no idea what to do in the far north. That looks a bit of a mess right now.



Already looking at this posted, I need to deepen the ocean closer to the shoreline, it looks different on my tablet.

[Ilanthar]

Yup, I agree that the forests looked better on the colourless version.
Nice progress, though!

[ThomasR]

I really like what you have here ! The shading is gonna give it a vibrant alive look

[Sidmandoo]

Yup, I agree that the forests looked better on the colourless version.
Nice progress, though!

Thanks Ilanthar ! I did a complete make over of the forests, redoing the line work and working on the coloring. I have laid in my basic color shade lines. I have put some highlights in the tree tops, and I am generally experimenting a little bit with the blends and tones. I think the forests on the southern and eastern side of the map now look like they have more volume and shape. Still have tons of clean up, but I am glad I put the effort in to redo the forests. They are more in the style of Voolf's maps and I have been looking at his work quite a bit to help get an idea of how to pull off the coloring.

I really like what you have here ! The shading is gonna give it a vibrant alive look

Thanks ThomasR!

Here is where I am to date....

[Sidmandoo]

So I totally revamped the north and went with crevasses. I worked on the title box and graphics. I had fun making the shields. I used Procreate and the process was quite quick. I spent time making icons and put them down as a test run. These are the capitals of the 5 kingdoms of Wytern Ath. Let me know what you think.......Still really need to work on the ocean. Need to start labeling stuff. Lots of design decisions, which are tough to make. Overall though, I'm much happier with how I revamped the northern part of the map.

Here it is....

[Sidmandoo]

So this map project took many twists and turns. I started off using fractal terrains to develop land masses, and then tried brushes with photoshop to create reliefs. I then scrapped that and went back to drawing, but during the coloring process, I hated the way the whole thing looked. I switched over to Krita during this time as well. I then didn't like the land masses, and decided to go with sort of a three continent look. The way the map looked it didn't really make sense from an ocean perspective, to me at least.

So I went back to old school, and using Procreate on my iPad, I slowly worked up this final piece, which I am pretty happy with. I think this will be my go map for my campaigns, and then I will slowly add places etc as my players explore. In the end, I found the most joy from just drawing line art, and not worrying as much about layers, effects, colors, etc.

So here is the final.