Well, I've done a bit more work to everything, and we now have a full set of cliffs as you would expect to find in an overland set, plus some that face away north.
And since I had to make them anyway I've trimmed up a second copy of them all to make a continuous set as well.
As I said earlier - its pretty clunky because all the continuous cliff segments are the same length, so they aren't really all that versatile, but I've welded 2 pairs together to make 2 inner bends if you want to make a sort of octagonal-ish crater with them instead of a plateau.
You're welcome, Jim. They will take some care to place properly, though, because these are not a connecting symbol set. They are just symbols that match up if you put them in the right place and the right order. As with walls in Per3 - start at the back and work to the front.
Thank you - though the falls were by far the easiest part. They are just white scribbles done in AP on top of the finished cliff image, and took me about 5 minutes to do right at the end.
With me I think the last one for tonight is about a certain anxiety that it might actually be rubbish and I was just wishful thinking it into perfection. It has the same feeling of mild panic attached to it as suddenly realising half way around the supermarket that I might not have properly locked the front door on my flat, or sometimes I think I might have left my car lights on :P
With time quite short now for getting things done for November's issue (they have to be on Ralf's desk by mid October so that he can do all the technical stuff that to my relatively non-technical mind appears to be magic), I think the lava flows and falls will have to wait until the next time.
Honestly Quenten they are just white lines. I'm not kidding.
The reason they work is because they are drawn in particular places on those particular cliffs, so there wouldn't be much point in doing them separately, or all you would get is a white scribble that wouldn't fit anywhere else.
Separate waterfalls at this scale are a bit of a nonsense. Separate waterfalls at city or dungeon scale is a different matter though ;)
Just white lines, she says. Do you know how often I have tried the white line thing for waterfalls. Any chance of a quick tutorial on how you make your scribbles (with an example scribble) into those brilliant waterfalls.
There really is nothing to it, though. You just draw raggedy white lines down where you think the water would fall (usually in the cracks in the rockface), then take the blurring tool and work little circles of blur into it where you think there would be spray.
This is the fall so zoomed in it's pixelated. As you can see its just a white scribble that's been blurred in a few places. Most blurring tools end up creating linear marks at this tiny scale, which you can use to your advantage with a waterfall - note the linear marks in the falls where I have moved the blurring tool fractionally from side to side.
Then you come back with a nice sharp eraser and take out the white where the rockface protrudes in front of where the water is falling. Not all of it. Just some very prominent bits of rock. And then you are done.
This is the fall on its own - showing how simple it really is. You've just got to be a bit patient with yourself and think about the shape of things as you work. Be the water falling down that cliff. Well... not literally, but in your mind, of course.
The other big 'secret' is to use your background.
If you've taken all that time and trouble to create a nice cliff to put this thing on, allow some of it to show through. Don't just cover it with a massive sheet of water. Most falls are more modest than Niagra, which is an impressive but artistically rather plain looking extreme of the phenomena in my opinion. Smaller more jagged falls that bounce around in the crevices are much more interesting to study.
So where the blurring ends up making the white bit you drew go transparent, don't fret. Just use it. It's like one of Bob Ross's happy little accidents.
Oh, and don't forget that it all goes crash at the bottom if it didn't higher up, so you can go a bit wild with the blur tool down there.
The optional extra is a layer behind the white of the waterfall set to "Glow and 50% opacity (in this case) just to paint and blur a few dabs of black to make the rock around the fall look wet. Be careful with that, though, it can really overcook things and make the whole thing look wrong. The other two falls in the set don't have this layer.
To complete the set here is the cliff before the waterfall is drawn. Maybe you can extract from these images whatever I've forgotten to say?
I just happened to chose the two cracks in the rockface that I did. I could just as easily have chosen another two, or done several/all of them. You could open a copy of any of the VH cliff symbols and practice in GIMP (though I recommend something with a much better blurring tool than GIMP, like Affinity Photo as above)
Yes, I'm with Remy here - I might give the impression that I'm artistic, but my maps are just from throwing down nice art assets that others have made, plus a passable understanding of CC3's functions and a little patience. I'm an engineer and I think my mind works in a way that much more easily understands Ralf and Remy's magic than your magic.
Well, apart from the oasis and the sandbanks the Natural folder is pretty much finished, though I think I might do something about the base of the rocks and the reefs (which are separate symbols).
It will soon be time to turn to structures for the rest of the not-quite month I have left, but I will need every minute of that time. Structures are not my strong point! LOL!
Speaking of structures, I totally forgot the trade ship. I've lived all my life on the coast and even sailed across the Channel on a couple of occasions, but I haven't ever managed to get the curves of a boat right in a drawing. So here I am using original ship plans from this site http://www.shipmodell.com/index_files/0PLAN1A.html#5S (its just a bit tricky downloading them, which is why I haven't suggested it as a general resource) to construct the crude shape of a Portuguese carrack "Nau del Cantabrico XIII". It's a medieval trade ship with one square sail. Something nice and easy to start with. That was the thinking behind my choice anyway - that and the fact it has one simple squarish sail that will make it instantly identifiable as a ship, rather than an exotic squashed insect with white wings.
A bit much for just one vessel in an overland annual style? Maybe, but I can easily build up a set of these things now I've worked out how to do it and potentially make a whole fleet of them over the years.
And don't worry! I have no intention of making anything more than a simple outline with the deck and mast so that I can use it to guide a hand painted version. Much faster!
As for why I didn't just google "Isometric sailing ships" - I did. There wasn't a single one I could use.
Thanks Sue -that shipmodell.com website is so useful - definitely worth working out how to download from. Ships are so hard to draw correctly, I'm hoping that Ralf does a new ship deckplan annual, as he hinted recently.
Wow, really hoping we get a few more installments for this style. Would like to see structures for various D&D type races (evles, dwarves, orcs, giants, and something demonic/evil comes to mind). Would also like to seeing some castle/keep, etc. variations. and some more variations for temperate forests (like willows, something taller/thinner). Also, some apple trees.
Also, the Underdark is horribly underrepresented and seems like your workflow could lend itself well to that setting -- fungal forests for the Vault of the Drow comes to mind(!!).
As a slight aside for those motorboat sites Loopysue mentioned just in case you land there - I've found that the super-expensive yachts and class A motorhomes and the like make really good starting points for shuttle maps.
I don't remember the yacht names, but there was one that had space for several cars. The motorhomes I recently looked at were some of the Thor and Prevost models. There's some more ideas here to take a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypcpFtagQYQ
The extra symbols you mentioned at the top of that list tend to be grouped together as "Border" symbols. These are usually only found in full overland styles, and there usually isn't time for Border symbols in an annual issue - not even one done in 2 parts. It's more of a full overland style thing.
I don't think I know enough about the Underdark to even say if it would be a suitable subject for an overland style.
Comments
Well, I've done a bit more work to everything, and we now have a full set of cliffs as you would expect to find in an overland set, plus some that face away north.
And since I had to make them anyway I've trimmed up a second copy of them all to make a continuous set as well.
As I said earlier - its pretty clunky because all the continuous cliff segments are the same length, so they aren't really all that versatile, but I've welded 2 pairs together to make 2 inner bends if you want to make a sort of octagonal-ish crater with them instead of a plateau.
I have just the spots on Crestar to try them out to ! Yippeee !
You're welcome, Jim. They will take some care to place properly, though, because these are not a connecting symbol set. They are just symbols that match up if you put them in the right place and the right order. As with walls in Per3 - start at the back and work to the front.
Last one for the evening. There's a full set of ice cliffs to go with the rock cliffs.
It's a little tricky nudging things around to make it work properly but you can get a glacier effect if you try.
Cool.
Lava cliffs and lava falls next.....
Maybe eventually. I'll have to add that to a wish list for the future, but there's no reason why not :)
I lied, but this is definitely the last one tonight. I just had to check that the waterfalls worked properly before I called them done.
Amazing Stuff Sue!
Thank you, Mike :)
I can't get enough of your awesome waterfalls Sue, looking forward to seeing the lavafalls.
Also I totally get the "last one for tonight" - "oh no it wasn't"
Art and mapping is surely even worse than computer gaming for having "just one more go" before bedtime. ?
Thank you - though the falls were by far the easiest part. They are just white scribbles done in AP on top of the finished cliff image, and took me about 5 minutes to do right at the end.
With me I think the last one for tonight is about a certain anxiety that it might actually be rubbish and I was just wishful thinking it into perfection. It has the same feeling of mild panic attached to it as suddenly realising half way around the supermarket that I might not have properly locked the front door on my flat, or sometimes I think I might have left my car lights on :P
With time quite short now for getting things done for November's issue (they have to be on Ralf's desk by mid October so that he can do all the technical stuff that to my relatively non-technical mind appears to be magic), I think the lava flows and falls will have to wait until the next time.
Any chance of some waterfalls just on their own?
Honestly Quenten they are just white lines. I'm not kidding.
The reason they work is because they are drawn in particular places on those particular cliffs, so there wouldn't be much point in doing them separately, or all you would get is a white scribble that wouldn't fit anywhere else.
Separate waterfalls at this scale are a bit of a nonsense. Separate waterfalls at city or dungeon scale is a different matter though ;)
Just white lines, she says. Do you know how often I have tried the white line thing for waterfalls. Any chance of a quick tutorial on how you make your scribbles (with an example scribble) into those brilliant waterfalls.
Maybe in 10 years time when I have time to do it :)
I'll be dead by then?
Aw, Quenten!
There really is nothing to it, though. You just draw raggedy white lines down where you think the water would fall (usually in the cracks in the rockface), then take the blurring tool and work little circles of blur into it where you think there would be spray.
This is the fall so zoomed in it's pixelated. As you can see its just a white scribble that's been blurred in a few places. Most blurring tools end up creating linear marks at this tiny scale, which you can use to your advantage with a waterfall - note the linear marks in the falls where I have moved the blurring tool fractionally from side to side.
Then you come back with a nice sharp eraser and take out the white where the rockface protrudes in front of where the water is falling. Not all of it. Just some very prominent bits of rock. And then you are done.
This is the fall on its own - showing how simple it really is. You've just got to be a bit patient with yourself and think about the shape of things as you work. Be the water falling down that cliff. Well... not literally, but in your mind, of course.
The other big 'secret' is to use your background.
If you've taken all that time and trouble to create a nice cliff to put this thing on, allow some of it to show through. Don't just cover it with a massive sheet of water. Most falls are more modest than Niagra, which is an impressive but artistically rather plain looking extreme of the phenomena in my opinion. Smaller more jagged falls that bounce around in the crevices are much more interesting to study.
So where the blurring ends up making the white bit you drew go transparent, don't fret. Just use it. It's like one of Bob Ross's happy little accidents.
Oh, and don't forget that it all goes crash at the bottom if it didn't higher up, so you can go a bit wild with the blur tool down there.
The optional extra is a layer behind the white of the waterfall set to "Glow and 50% opacity (in this case) just to paint and blur a few dabs of black to make the rock around the fall look wet. Be careful with that, though, it can really overcook things and make the whole thing look wrong. The other two falls in the set don't have this layer.
To complete the set here is the cliff before the waterfall is drawn. Maybe you can extract from these images whatever I've forgotten to say?
I just happened to chose the two cracks in the rockface that I did. I could just as easily have chosen another two, or done several/all of them. You could open a copy of any of the VH cliff symbols and practice in GIMP (though I recommend something with a much better blurring tool than GIMP, like Affinity Photo as above)
An excellent explanation as to why I leave these things to you :)
I'm an engineer and I think my mind works in a way that much more easily understands Ralf and Remy's magic than your magic.
If we were all artists nothing would ever get done. We might imagine things...
Leonardo da Vinci's second flying machine drawing - 1485
But we can't design the reality and build them like the mathematicians, engineers and scientists can.
Igor Sikorsky with his working helicopter -1933
So this modern world we know only exists because we all have different talents - none of which would have been much good without all the others.
Well, apart from the oasis and the sandbanks the Natural folder is pretty much finished, though I think I might do something about the base of the rocks and the reefs (which are separate symbols).
Absolutely stunning, Sue!
Thank you, Daisho :)
It will soon be time to turn to structures for the rest of the not-quite month I have left, but I will need every minute of that time. Structures are not my strong point! LOL!
Speaking of structures, I totally forgot the trade ship. I've lived all my life on the coast and even sailed across the Channel on a couple of occasions, but I haven't ever managed to get the curves of a boat right in a drawing. So here I am using original ship plans from this site http://www.shipmodell.com/index_files/0PLAN1A.html#5S (its just a bit tricky downloading them, which is why I haven't suggested it as a general resource) to construct the crude shape of a Portuguese carrack "Nau del Cantabrico XIII". It's a medieval trade ship with one square sail. Something nice and easy to start with. That was the thinking behind my choice anyway - that and the fact it has one simple squarish sail that will make it instantly identifiable as a ship, rather than an exotic squashed insect with white wings.
A bit much for just one vessel in an overland annual style? Maybe, but I can easily build up a set of these things now I've worked out how to do it and potentially make a whole fleet of them over the years.
And don't worry! I have no intention of making anything more than a simple outline with the deck and mast so that I can use it to guide a hand painted version. Much faster!
As for why I didn't just google "Isometric sailing ships" - I did. There wasn't a single one I could use.
Ships are so hard to draw correctly, I'm hoping that Ralf does a new ship deckplan annual, as he hinted recently.
You're welcome, Raiko :)
You just have to be careful what you click on, or you end up on some modern motorboat selling site! LOL!
Wow, really hoping we get a few more installments for this style. Would like to see structures for various D&D type races (evles, dwarves, orcs, giants, and something demonic/evil comes to mind). Would also like to seeing some castle/keep, etc. variations. and some more variations for temperate forests (like willows, something taller/thinner). Also, some apple trees.
Also, the Underdark is horribly underrepresented and seems like your workflow could lend itself well to that setting -- fungal forests for the Vault of the Drow comes to mind(!!).
Four more installments for 2021!!!!
As a slight aside for those motorboat sites Loopysue mentioned just in case you land there - I've found that the super-expensive yachts and class A motorhomes and the like make really good starting points for shuttle maps.
I don't remember the yacht names, but there was one that had space for several cars. The motorhomes I recently looked at were some of the Thor and Prevost models. There's some more ideas here to take a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypcpFtagQYQ
Thank you! :)
The extra symbols you mentioned at the top of that list tend to be grouped together as "Border" symbols. These are usually only found in full overland styles, and there usually isn't time for Border symbols in an annual issue - not even one done in 2 parts. It's more of a full overland style thing.
I don't think I know enough about the Underdark to even say if it would be a suitable subject for an overland style.
I hadn't thought of it this way. Thanks :)