CG's Sept/Oct Lite Mapping Challenge: Themiscyra
LadieStorm
🖼️ 50 images Surveyor
I've really only just started this map, and if you have been following my latest supposed screw up, you will know that I'm playing around with overlapping bitmap fills to mimic different textures.
This is the beginning of my imagined version of the Garden of Eden... The cliffs may not look like much right now, but I've literally just started, there will be another layer of cliffs plus some other stuff (like a waterfall - my newest favorite thing, but this map does call for it!).
Anway, I hope you enjoy the journey!
This is the beginning of my imagined version of the Garden of Eden... The cliffs may not look like much right now, but I've literally just started, there will be another layer of cliffs plus some other stuff (like a waterfall - my newest favorite thing, but this map does call for it!).
Anway, I hope you enjoy the journey!
Comments
A couple of things you might want to sort out at this early stage before its too late to do anything about them:
- I think you may need to extend the rock masses quite a long way outside the map frame so that the bevel doesn't come back inside the map to form that nasty sharp line you can still see down the right hand edge there, despite the partitive grass texture.
- you might want to be a little more random with the edge line of the grass on the first level of cliff - to give it some more jiggle and vary the apparent height of the cliff face, but to do that you need to make the bevel about twice as wide as it currently is, just so that you have some leeway to play with - which means you will have to extend the rock platforms even further outside the frame.
- This is more of a tip than anything: I have completely done away with the shadows on the cliff formations in MC, simply because I couldn't seem to get the levels to sit on the ground. I only use a very faint dark glow (outer), set to 1% and 5 units blur. Try it, and see if it doesn't "land" those floating cliffs
It finallly dawned on me... I actually had my heart set on doing Themiscyra... the Themiscyra of my childhood hero Wonder Woman, but the only 'Greek' architecture was from the CD3 set B... which normally looks a little cartoonish to me.
But as I started thinking about it... I realized that in this case, the cartoonish look would be perfect, since Wonder Woman is a comic book hero... in essence, a cartoon. So I went back to the drawing board, and have started anew... blending overland, and city designs into the island of Themiscyra. I've really only just started, I have my basic island, with the mounains and lakes...
I plan to start putting in the city next, then finish out with the vegetation, and all the rest. I'm taking a step away from the photorealism a bit... yet still using the photorealistic techniques that have been received so well. So we will see what happens!
I'm almost afraid to say anything... I didn't put you off your Eden Project did I?
LLAP
Nacon4
It really is only down to practice - that and really LOOKING at the world around you - noticing colours and shapes, and how they might look in a photograph (ie squashed flat, no matter the angle at which you happen to be viewing them).
It's not all bad, I'm learning a lot about color and things like that from you, and LadieStorm and Lorelei. You ladies have blowm me away with the color and accuracy of your maps.
Thanks for that!
LLAP
Nacon4
I'm soooo sorry Ed! I guess that will teach me to make such sweeping assumptions!
If it's any comfort at all, I couldn't see anything till I was 11 years old. No one realised the reason I kept walking into the edges of doors and so on was because I was so incredibly short-sighted that I needed seriously heavy glasses just to know that buildings were made from bricks, trees had leaves, or that water reflected things. They just thought I had lovely big eyes - big being the problem - too long to focus on anything!!!
Unfortunately they didn't realise this till after I tripped over something and cracked my head open on the corner of a concrete front doorstep. I still have the dent in my right temple to prove it 39 years later - and I still can't see the world straight. Believe me - varifocals aren't all they're cooked up to be if you can't afford the quality lenses.
Sorry to kind of hijack your thread, Storm. I just had to say sorry!
Again apologies if I inflicted any needless pain.
LLAP
Nacon4
My apologies also to LadieStorm, I did hijack (unintentionally) this thread. It won't happen again.
But I'm a writer and poet, with a very descriptive nature. I will spend hours sitting g in my patio watching Thunderstorms, or observing g the way the wind lows through the trees, or the way squirrels dance around as they gather nuts for the winter. I can be entertained by studying fish swimming g in an aquarium, and observing g the beauty in the way light and water plays off their skin, and their many colors.
What I'm trying to say is that I've trained myself to pay attention to details, especially when it comes to nature and I use that attention to detail in my writing, crafting...and in making maps. I also map.from a writer's perspective in that I also try to convey what a place FEELS like, not just what it looks like... Whether it's tranquil and serene, or hostile and foreboding.
Wow...I'm rambling again....I'll stop now! Lol
BTW- I was and still am dsyslexic. It made my life miserable, I couldn't focus on anything for more than two minutes in a row.
LLAP
Nacon4
I suffer very mildly from dyslexia when I'm extremely tired, but my main problem is all the floaters I get, which can sometimes obscure the vision in my right eye. That's why I don't really read all that much, since moving my eyes from side to side has a tendency to disturb the floaters into a veritable swarm of blurry black bees.
I listen to audio books instead, which also frees up both my hands and my eyes to draw maps
...
Anyhow - I put a whole lot of info about bevel mountains over on the sister thread to this one on CG for you Storm. I think you have already picked it up.
Looking forward to the next instalment
Looking forward to more updates,
Bill
So here it is!
Good luck!
@Dogtag - thanks! I thought it was a nice touch myself, since it's supposed to be Wonder Woman's Themiscyra
Good.