Page 12 of 14
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 2:33 am
by zedturtle
Otaku-sempai wrote:Yeah, if you want to limit the size of your maps to about 300 miles across (or so) then a map of Forlindon, if it extended to the west as far as the island of Tol Fuin, would only include the edge of the Northern Ered Luin. So more comprehensive coverage of the northern range of the Blue Mountains would have to be on a separate map covering the regions surrounding the River Lune. Even leaving out Tol Fuin doesn't allow you to cover all of Forlindon and also include all of the River Lune (much less the lands to the east of it).
The problem with Forlindon is that there just isn't much of interest there once you leave the proximity of the Blue Mountains. There's not much adventure to be found by accompanying Elves floating timber down the river to Forlond. And the sites of Dolmed and Rerir can be covered without giving any attention to the rest of Northern Lindon. I think that, if I were you, I would ignore the region unless could find a really compelling reason to make a separate map for it (or unless I wanted to to a larger, comprehensive map for all of Western Eriador and Lindon; but it seems as though you would prefer to leave that for the game designers at C7).
Your size limits do seem to provide plenty of room to cover Southern Ered Luin and Harlindon as a single map.
I'm a bit confused. I did the map at the size that I did in order to get all of the Blue Mountains in, without getting into the Shire. And, yes, I don't want my work to be completely wasted, though I suppose only time will tell on that regard.
I thought the map that I was working on (which the post above is just a small clipping of) was helpful to you, is that not the case?
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 7:27 am
by Otaku-sempai
zedturtle wrote:I'm a bit confused. I did the map at the size that I did in order to get all of the Blue Mountains in, without getting into the Shire. And, yes, I don't want my work to be completely wasted, though I suppose only time will tell on that regard.
I thought the map that I was working on (which the post above is just a small clipping of) was helpful to you, is that not the case?
You're fine; I think I was a bit confused myself. I thought that you might have narrowed your focus on the map to cover a somewhat smaller area. My suggestions were based on that idea--that you might prefer to have several smaller maps instead of one more comprehensive one for the most westerly lands of Middle-earth. If that was in error then disregard what I wrote.
I find the map, as is, very useful. For my purposes, I did rename the pass north of the River Lune as the
North Pass rather than the Himling Pass (which seemed too confusing, naming it after an island off-shore).
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 7:31 am
by SirGalrim
Great work zedturtle! Are you going to make downloadable PDFs of your maps?
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:52 am
by zedturtle
SirGalrim wrote:Great work zedturtle! Are you going to make downloadable PDFs of your maps?
Absolutely. At some point, I will finalise the Ered Luin map and then I'll make a PDF with the various features (grid, labels, etc.) on different layers. I plan to do the same thing for the rest of my maps, and, of course, the long term goal is to get all of Middle-earth (or at least the NW,
) done.
However, I've got some pressing projects at the moment, which means any big updates are a month or two away.
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 11:17 am
by SirGalrim
Great.
I used your red, black and white map of the upper vales of Anduin last night. I printed it out tore up the sides, soaked it juice and put it on the grill. Looked pretty old fashioned and was quite crispy. One character bought it in game from a trader for one treasure. They players where amazed and asked to be able to buy more maps in the future.
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 1:45 pm
by zedturtle
SirGalrim wrote:Great.
I used your red, black and white map of the upper vales of Anduin last night. I printed it out tore up the sides, soaked it juice and put it on the grill. Looked pretty old fashioned and was quite crispy. One character bought it in game from a trader for one treasure. They players where amazed and asked to be able to buy more maps in the future.
Excellent. I love doing stuff like that!
I am working on a map of Mirkwood, but it's woefully incomplete.
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 5:34 pm
by Majestic
SirGalrim wrote:Great.
I used your red, black and white map of the upper vales of Anduin last night. I printed it out tore up the sides, soaked it juice and put it on the grill. Looked pretty old fashioned and was quite crispy. One character bought it in game from a trader for one treasure. They players where amazed and asked to be able to buy more maps in the future.
I love doing stuff like this as well. Kudos on a fantastic idea,
SirGalRim!
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 8:53 pm
by TheMonarchGamer
I don't believe anyone's already suggested this, but I'd recommend taking an eraser with soft edges and a low opacity and brushing over the terrain behind the names, just to make the names a little more legible. That should lower the clash of the names the terrain lines, while still keeping the terrain somewhat visible. Just a suggestion, of course. Your artwork is amazing.
-The Monarch Gamer
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 12:09 am
by zedturtle
TheMonarchGamer wrote:I don't believe anyone's already suggested this, but I'd recommend taking an eraser with soft edges and a low opacity and brushing over the terrain behind the names, just to make the names a little more legible. That should lower the clash of the names the terrain lines, while still keeping the terrain somewhat visible. Just a suggestion, of course. Your artwork is amazing.
-The Monarch Gamer
To get a little inside-baseball, the maps outlines are drawn by hand. For the Ered Luin map, the colouration was done digitally (Photoshop). All of the labelling and ancillary things (grids, roads, etc.) were added later (in Illustrator). There is, of course, an outline around the letters (so each name is actually two instances of the text, with the stroked outline behind the unstroked text... that way the stroke doesn't cut into, and destroy, the shape of the glyphs). I believe that there might be a soft glow also assigned to stroked text, but it's obviously too subtle (if it's there at all).
So, good idea, probably worth doing. For my Mirkwood map, I tried to anticipate the major locations and indicate them on the hand-drawn layer, we'll see how everything shakes out there.
I will do the erase in Illustrator, because I don't want to do any destructive edits to the file (and even if I made a new layer in Photoshop, I'd only be semi-guessing about where the text would end up and how much space it would occupy).
- - - - - - -
TLDR: Great idea! Probably do it on the next map pass. Thanks for the nice words!
Re: Black & White Map
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2016 8:15 pm
by shipwreck
Forgive the thread necromancy, but I finally went through all these and they're brilliant. Good job, zed! I hope you get time to make more soon.