Conquer Club

Title?

-Sully

i like how this map looks like it's hand-drawn. the little lines in the water, the washed out colours and the grain on the flags, even the poorly spaced rail lines are very nice details that work together to create the hand-drawn feel.
however some elements spoil that feel.
1. the perfect lines in the legend. try and freehand them. it doesn't matter if they don't come out perfect. that's the whole point.
2. the areas with diagonal lines could also use a bit of freehand
3. the font
4. lack of a nice title.

i took a peek at your blog and i really liked your sketches. use that talent here to give the map your own personal touch. anybody can draw a straight line in photoshop but not many can draw by hand like you.

I don't know, I still think the railways conflict with the borders.

The borders should be stronger than the railways, not the other way around. The borders are what primarily help the player to visualize the map and the connections between the territories - the territory boundaries should be the strongest, clearest element of the map.

Here's what I suggest for the railways:

- make them a bit narrower and not as thick
- lower the opacity a bit
- cut them off where they overlap with borders, so that it looks sort of like the borders go over them - this will help bring the borders on the foreground, while still keeping the railway connections clear.

OK, thanks for the feedback guys.

@VS - Title.. yes, this will be soon. I think I'm going to draw it.

@ DiM - Thanks for the kind words and feedback (actually, this map was hand drawn for the most part. Mostly the colors and the paper, the rivers and seas as well. The borders, ect, looked too sloppy when scanned in so i redrew them in PS).

1) Freehand it.... hmmm... I'm real hesitant. I feel like the imaginary cartographer who drew the map would have had access to a ruler. If freehanding it doesn't look good to my eye, I think maybe something like layered papers a la 13 Colonies or First Nations of America would work quite nicely.
2) Do you mean the army symbols? Like the nearby ruler, I presumed the cartographer had a template for drawing these things. When I freehanded them originally, they were a total mess.
3) You don't like the font? The style I was going for was typewriter of the early 20th century. I rather like the font, so while your criticism is appreciated, I think I'm going to keep it.
4) Nice title... yes. This is coming. There's a little spot in the lower left I'm going to use.

@Natty - regrettably, I'm of totally different opinion with you on this one. I think the railroads should be bolder than the borders because they cross over them. The regions are irrelevant to the trains because they link cities, not territories. When i had them so narrow, I felt they just got muddied up with the borders too much. With them thick like this, they are clear that they are not borders and are something different. I might lower the opacity a bit though, just to get it to mesh with the rest of the map a bit better.

Industrial Helix wrote:@ DiM - Thanks for the kind words and feedback (actually, this map was hand drawn for the most part. Mostly the colors and the paper, the rivers and seas as well. The borders, ect, looked too sloppy when scanned in so i redrew them in PS).

1) Freehand it.... hmmm... I'm real hesitant. I feel like the imaginary cartographer who drew the map would have had access to a ruler. If freehanding it doesn't look good to my eye, I think maybe something like layered papers a la 13 Colonies or First Nations of America would work quite nicely.
2) Do you mean the army symbols? Like the nearby ruler, I presumed the cartographer had a template for drawing these things. When I freehanded them originally, they were a total mess.
3) You don't like the font? The style I was going for was typewriter of the early 20th century. I rather like the font, so while your criticism is appreciated, I think I'm going to keep it.
4) Nice title... yes. This is coming. There's a little spot in the lower left I'm going to use.

1. fair enough
2. i actually meant the diagonal lines inside the cities but since we established the map maker had acces to a ruler i guess they're ok even though they look too perfect to me. i mean even with a ruler you'd still not get them perfectly spaced and paralel.
3. i actually like the font and immediately recognized the typewriter. but i would actually feel more attracted if it were a handwriting font. like the map maker made notations on the map.
4. perfect.

I like the look of this map. I have a book of maps from WW1, and this map is very similar in style to them.

Augustus Maximus wrote:I like the look of this map. I have a book of maps from WW1, and this map is very similar in style to them.

It wouldn't happen to be the westpoint atlas of WWI would it? That was part of the inspiration for this one. I also looked at loads of contemporary maps to get an idea for the feel. I'm glad you like it so far!

are railways solved? did you Helix try railways as I have on Slovak Uprising map? that "symbol" is used on maps for railways...

well if it wasn't you I would say those rails are a quick and cheap solution to avoid graphic work, if it wasn't you
as said before its too strong in respect to the borders
have you tried to use only a thin double line
so borders would be a thick black line and trains a thin double line

Industrial Helix wrote:

Augustus Maximus wrote:I like the look of this map. I have a book of maps from WW1, and this map is very similar in style to them.

It wouldn't happen to be the westpoint atlas of WWI would it? That was part of the inspiration for this one. I also looked at loads of contemporary maps to get an idea for the feel. I'm glad you like it so far!

No. The book I have was published in 1917 in Berlin. It shows the month to month changes on the Western Front from August 1914 to February 1917. The book was printed by a private company for sale to the public.

@pamoa - Well, i want to use a railroad symbol that is somewhat common to maps of the period. The military maps of the period I've seen use this style most often. This style was my first choice but I couldn't find a way to make it work, but when I was googling for solutions, I found this map:



The spiky rails are much thicker than the regular borders and that causes them to stand out from the rest of map. It seemed like a good solution that gave me what I wanted originally. I didn't want to do the skyview rails because I think they're quite uncommon to maps, same for the double line idea.



Update: I made the railroads much less inky and black. To me, they seem to blend in the map muchbetter yet still stand out enough to be distinct.

I'm a bit concerned how this will look on the small map. Have you considered supersizing this a bit?

Not yet. Maybe I'll shrink it down tomorrow.

much better like this would you mind trying with a bit of brown in it (sepia ink)
my other concern is about white armies on the map as reds and "green" are easy to find the white ones are invisible
maybe you should use the white you have in the Czech flag

Hi ndustrial Helix,

I love the pale grunge effect you are going with in this map. However I do think some or your free hand line drawing needs some improvement. particularly with borders. Some your boarders looks very good and natural, I an guessing these are ones you traced from a base image. Then you have those territory borders which you can tell are hand drawn, then don't flow the same. For example the pink high population areas have a good (I an guessing traced) outer boarder, but then you have the ones you must have free handed inside that region that stick out. I don't know if it is a big issue but I defiantly believe this is holding your image back from its full potential, which judging by what you have done so far, is well within your ability to fix.

I have many little issues I want to address about this map as well, but I think it is better to address those at a later date. Keep up the good work here, mate.

Pamoa - I could try sepia ink again, but it didn't stand out well again the background when I originally tried. Some grays had the same effect as well, they're appear near invisible.

You man the White army symbols? Sorry, it took me a minute to figure that out. But yeah, i could see that. I'll try using a stronger white under there.

@gimil - Hmm... is it the borders themselves in that they don't seem to look like actual borders? I'm not sure what I should do differently if I redrew them. Less arbitrary squiggles?

Or is it that they are pixelly or jagged? Should I zoom in more when I draw them?

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

Industrial Helix wrote:@gimil - Hmm... is it the borders themselves in that they don't seem to look like actual borders? I'm not sure what I should do differently if I redrew them. Less arbitrary squiggles?

Or is it that they are pixelly or jagged? Should I zoom in more when I draw them?

It is that the free handed ones are much smoother with gentler curves. I think you need more squiggles.

Ah ahhh... right. Ok, I can do that. I want to create more zones of influence, rather than the actual provinces. For example, if in WWII the allies took Rome, it didn't mean they by default controlled all within the political area of Italy's borders. So basically, I'm using the provinces more like regions rather than peacetime administrative regions... if that makes any sense. But yeah, I'll make them a little more squiggly.

Industrial Helix wrote:Ah ahhh... right. Ok, I can do that. I want to create more zones of influence, rather than the actual provinces. For example, if in WWII the allies took Rome, it didn't mean they by default controlled all within the political area of Italy's borders. So basically, I'm using the provinces more like regions rather than peacetime administrative regions... if that makes any sense. But yeah, I'll make them a little more squiggly.

I wasn't being critical of the layout of the borders, just how they have been drawn /

Sounds a bit like Jessica Rabbit: "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

Personally I like the map just as it is now. I would like to check out the game play once it gets far enough along.

Ok, here's an update hitting most of the issues raised. I fixed the borders and added a prototype title... it isn't great, but at least I have something to work from now.

The changes look good.

The Union Jack is obscuring the "B" in "British 6th Battalion".

Yeah, i saw that after I posted the image... it must be linked with another image on the map. I'll hit it up with the next update.