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Wyvern

Wyvern

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Wyvern
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  • [WIP] Kingdom of Gongodûr

    When you say that the rivers are too regular, do you mean that there should be more squiggles in them?

    To an extent, yes. At this scale, they don't need to be substantial necessarily, but long straight lines, and those arcing curves (those between Mounts Haymish and Beck, under the Gongodur banner, and northwest from Middleham) look artificial. They'd be fine as canals; not so much as natural rivers.

    I think this is accentuated, for me at least, because many of the road lines have more natural-looking small curves and slight changes of direction along them than some of the rivers.

    Actually, looking closer at the roads, that long curving line between Tuncaster to the Jolly Hedgehog clips the foot of one of the smaller peaks on the western side of the Wirbel Mountains (about opposite the Dhegburim Mines), so might be tweaked a little to avoid it, since the rest is in the broad valley there otherwise.

    Royal Scribe
  • [WIP] Kingdom of Gongodûr

    Sue's saved me having to comment about the fonts - thanks Sue! - but for the labelling in general, because there's quite a lot happening mostly in the mountains, I'd suggest thinking of moving the labels, where practical, out onto the plain grassland green areas, which might help with the font style & colours issues. I'd also be inclined to think of shortening the title scroll, and moving it too onto the plains, so it's hiding less of the "interesting" terrain it currently partly overlies.

    The river lines are definitely improved now. That around Mt Haymish and Tuncaster is a little too angular in places though (Beck River). Where that same river curves towards Middleham, it may look better to have it follow the break in terrain fills, instead of cutting through them. You might find it easier to erase and redraw this river using a smooth-path river drawing tool, instead of trying to adjust it where it is now. I usually end up doing that, at least!

    On the political borders version, the edge colours are very distracting, and make it hard to know where the river lines are. I suspect it would look better with just the shading effect on the areas outside Gongodur, as that'll still highlight where the borders are sufficiently, with luck. You may need to add some new shading to the areas on the east and south map edges, however. This would avoid the oddity of the mountain peaks being overlain by the border colours (though you could move those lines to a sheet below the mountain symbols instead, of course).

    Unless there's a strong plotline reason, it may be worth reconsidering having the southern Gongodur border cutting through the symbol in the Valley of Dread, as presently.

    EDIT: Forgot! The compass indicator probably needs enlarging, and again moving to somewhere less terrain-interesting. It's rather too well-hidden where it is now (which is naturally why I forgot it 😉).

    Royal Scribe
  • Sticky Note Dungeon

    Did you know someone's split virtual water on your page 😉?!

    Loopysue
  • 1000th Map Competition: Ober, Southern Scar

    Even if we did hijack your topic completely 😉😁!

    Shessar
  • [WIP] Kingdom of Gongodûr

    A few of the labels are a little too close to the map edge - one or two seem to run slightly beyond it, e.g. Wirbilini Woods and Taggtrum R(iver) - which is another issue with text in CC, where the text's position shifts at different resolutions/export settings.

    That can usually be solved by making sure you have the correct location point for the text before placing it (such as "mid left", "top right", etc.), because the text will only expand/contract away from that point, so it's effectively fixed to that spot. It can be tedious having to remember to change it every time if you're doing a lot of labels in different places, although you can use the shortcut arrow keys instead once the text is on your cursor to be placed.

    You mentioned thinking of putting some elements onto a separate layer that could be toggled on and off. For this map, I think it's probably better to have both the regional borders and their labels on all the time. With just the labels, it's impossible to guess exactly what they refer to otherwise, including identifying how far Gongodur extends.

    Royal Scribe
  • [WIP] 1000th Map Competition: Elkton, Alarius North Central

    Disappointed we've lost the pogoing were-elks now (yes, yes, I know those were just dots marking the lines of the trails-to-be, but even so 😉)!

    And this is the Village of the where? Ah, no, it's the "were(-something-still-to-be-added)".

    Alderun Wood and Lake instead? Alder from the tree, and run from the river, say? And at a guess (knowing nothing much about Star Wars), Alderaan sounds likely a contraction of the real-world star-name Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus, the Bull.

    Loopysue
  • Topographical map of the Ice bed of Antarctica

    Pleased we could help a little here!

    I'd forgotten how much information had already been presented on this topic using the BEDMAP2 data - it was all a few years ago now we discussed it first, of course!

    With online searching, sometimes it just needs an extra, or slightly different, word, and even then, you've often got to hunt through the list to track down the specific item of most use, assuming what you need is even there at all.

    And I REALLY wish I could find the off switch for the dratted AI "findings" Google now insists on stuffing at the top of a search list, given these are almost always pure fantasy (their AI doesn't handle interpretation of factual data at all well, it seems).

    anridiredubh
  • Hex map

    Hexcrawl Toolbox was funded on Kickstarter in late 2022 and physically delivered in August last year (I backed the KS). The beta of the app has only just been released to KS backers last month, as although it was the final stretch goal for the campaign, it's been a year in development already - computers, you know 😉!

    Next month, Games Omnivorous are launching their next in this line of hex products, "Boreal Frostlands", as a crowdfunding project on Backerkit. The artwork samples on the sign-up page there look just as wonderful as their previous products already!

    Ricko
  • JPG Fill Different from Editor

    Now you just need to make the orbital paths elliptical 😉!

    KertDawg
  • Lumadair and the Caves of Dread (Pencil Sketch annual)

    I've grouped my Gallery maps by topics that I'll recognise and remember, which should also help guide anyone trying to look for something there as well, with the thumbnail image per topic. I don't think you can second-guess all the possible permutations others might find most useful for how to store maps on the Gallery, so I wouldn't worry over it unduly!

    As most of my maps there are for the Atlas, there's an existing structure to follow with those anyway for me, storing them by region.

    Very pleased this had been spotted as a problem and resolved, as it turns out I had a couple of folders on the "missing" page 2 that I'd completely forgotten were there! So thanks very much Royal Scribe and Monsen!

    Royal Scribe