Symbol developments
Loopysue
ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
As with the sister thread to this one called "Texture developments", this will be a thread where I roll ideas about new symbols around for comment.
first up - a mountain style I've been wanting to try for a while. The linework is atrocious, so this is only a concept drawing.
If you saw a set of mountains like this one (but better drawn) along with matching fills and symbols, would you be interested?
[Image_12812]
first up - a mountain style I've been wanting to try for a while. The linework is atrocious, so this is only a concept drawing.
If you saw a set of mountains like this one (but better drawn) along with matching fills and symbols, would you be interested?
[Image_12812]
Comments
Quenten - The linework is very rough compared to my pen on paper work. I can just about control where it goes despite drawing on a black slab on the desk while staring at the screen, but I can't seem to control the pressure (= line width) very well. It's incredibly sensitive, and my old hands are not such fine instruments as they once were!
This file is already 3.5GB while open in Krita, so you can see why I could never do it before now on the cripple (recently deceased) 4GB RAM laptop. Hence the lack of practice.
I do listen to what people say, though.
I've done a different version of the same by hiding the colour layer. I wonder which one will be more popular?
I'm looking at them again and thinking I also did the shading better on the second one. Maybe that has the knock-on effect of making me feel happier with the linework there as well
Would be very interested.
So far I've drawn 18, and shaded the first 6. I mean to finish shading the other 12 before I stop. That way at least 18 of them will look like they belong with each other.
That's a 12,000 pixel square image divided into 36 x 2000x2000 pixel squares - each to hold a mountain. I'm hoping that if I draw that many I will have enough to pick the best for a set and leave out any lame ones. This kind of project has only become possible in the last few days that I've had my new PC. It would just have been impossible to do them all at once in 36 individual files on the old laptop - not and maintain a consistent style throughout.
At the moment they are just lines and shading on a parchment background. I was intending to merge them with the parchment background and then cut sharp around the outline on top and fade it out at the base to use on the same background, or give them a white background (the monochrome style) similar to the existing black and white styles, so that they work the same way by blocking things behind them. I can do it differently if you would prefer - or several different ways so you could pick the style(s) you like best?
I was intending to start with the mountains, then add hills, trees, settlement symbols and fills etc, but I could diversify the mountain style first and then develop the rest of the set for each of the more popular ones.
There is no reason why I couldn't do two or three related styles.
The parchment background is a newly created version I did in GIMP now that I have the power to make really big images. Its currently 12,000 pixels square and doesn't tile, but I could make it tile at 3000 pixels square if you would like that as well - like the Beaumaris one.
So far you've seen transparent with a parchment background. Now I've tried a bit more detail and colouring in that detail, then changing the 'blend mode' of the newly coloured in layer between things like Overlay, Gamma Dark, and Grain Extract/Merge. This is a small part of a single mountain, but it should give a better idea.
[Image_12822]
[Image_12823]
[Image_12824]
[Image_12825]
All these things can be changed by a single click to change the layer Blend Mode. It depends what you want, really
This is Krita, so its layers, not sheets, but Krita layers (and most image editors like it, including PS) have blend modes. You can set a layer to any blend mode you like. Where comparisons with CC3 can be drawn - yes, Krita layers are equivalent to CC3 sheets, such that you can imagine the linework drawn on one sheet, the shading on another, the background on a third, and the colours on a fourth
Its incredibly bad at the moment because its less than half done, and the transparent fringe needs to extend further beyond the ends of the lines, or the lines need trimming back. About the only thing that's right is the overall size. I intended them to be about the size of the larger mountains in the Schley set, which I used as a benchmark for the basic specs.
I don't think mine are going to mix with Schley's all that easily unless I warp it more towards his style somehow.
The question is - to warp, or not to warp...
As you can see there are fills as well. I expect that I will eventually do the whole thing - right down to the sea monsters
They are so rugged and nice, and i can see how the maps would look like with those.
I'm looking forward to the first mountain that you feel hits the spot, with all the details you want.
There are no hard and fast decisions just yet. Ralf like the B/W ones, others like the brightly coloured ones, and there are lots of different ideas buzzing around my head at the moment.
Meanwhile, I've just managed to crash the file! LOL!
No idea how that happened. It was only using 4GB of 32. Hmmmm. Maybe this is a limitation caused by Krita, and not my brand new sporty hardware.
Just as other people has said before me.
Do it in your own time and as you want it to be.
It is always better for the finished product.
I'm hoping to finish the mountains and hills over the next month. The rest may take longer. I have a course I have to attend for the next few months, but I will post the major milestone events in this thread as they happen.
This is quite a muddle. The shading is wrong, and I need to keep the thicker ink lines to the profile on each one, but mountain ranges have never happened overnight.