[Official] Middle East REVAMP [Quenched]

[Evil Pope]

I think the continents are distinct enough.. except cyprus.. Its hard to tell if its part of turkey or the Near East.. I mean, if you look closely, you can see that its part of the near east.. but with a quick glance, it looks like turkey.. probably because the army shadow covers most of the island, and it lightens it to about the same color as turkey.

[Neutrino]

I officially promote you to master of Mountain making.
Unfortunatly, there is no pay assosiated with this job.

Anyway; I think you should probably diferentiate a bit more between the continent colours. Also, I think the contient names are a bit to large and blocky. Either put them in cursive, or go back to that nice legend in pg1.

Either way is good, though you should probably do both.

That is all.

[Mr. K]

Well done man, looks better than what I was going toward.

[spinwizard]

could u change the name of israel and palistionion terrortory to some thing shorter so ut fits better? mabey just israel...

[bedplay]

Despite the names, countries near the borders, i really do find it hard to differentiate between...

perhaps you could either change the colours slightly or put thicker borders round?

I don't know, but i do have to strain my eyes a bit... e.g. looking at georgia (only you could get away with this keyogi, if it was anyone else they'd have to change it )

[johloh]

-mountains = awesome
-i think the colors of the areas are a little hard to differentiate, i like that they are similar, but maybe try a little more distinction.
-initially i liked the lower layer continent names...but I think they are distracting, especially when they are underneath country names. (for example, i think 'arabia' looks good, but 'near east' is really really hard to read. and makes everything around it hard to read also)

[KEYOGI]

could u change the name of israel and palistionion terrortory to some thing shorter so ut fits better? mabey just israel...

All names and borders have to remain the same at the request of the original cartographer. I prefer it this way anyway.

I don't know, but i do have to strain my eyes a bit... e.g. looking at georgia (only you could get away with this keyogi, if it was anyone else they'd have to change it Razz )

Thanks bedplay.

I'll look at fixing this though, it doesn't seem to be an overly popular idea. I just wanted to try something different and was trying to keep with the style of old maps.

I've got quite a few updates to make, so keep an eye out during the week.

[bedplay]

Here's an idea for you KEYOGI.



I've posted a link of an old map , with painted areas around the borders, if you used say...

yellow
dark green
light green
dark brown
light brown
& biege
(the exact colours you used for the first map you did)

That would look pretty good I think, plus it'd be easier to distinguish

you could even have them less obvious than you're 1st map if you differentiated between .eg. a greeny coulour adjacent to a yellowey colour to add more contrast between them.

[KEYOGI]

That is actually something i considered. All the maps I found with that style were from the 1900's though I think. I was trying to go older and based my ideas off a map from the 1800's. I'll see where the next update takes me though, something needs to be done.

[spinwizard]

u could make it a old brown colour in the middle and with a red tint or somethink like that round the edge

[KEYOGI]

Update - March 10

With Army Shadows


Without Army Shadows


Changes made this update
- Reduced font size
- Removed shadow from behind text
- Reduced continent label size and depth
- Added back a bit more variation to continent colours
- Changed colour of dead territory
- Added an option without army shadows

Comments
I kept water the colour it is, just doesn't look right blue in my opinion. I'll post up an option with blue water if it's still wanted though.

I haven't been able to come up with satisfactory edges or a legend yet, I just can't get either of these things right.

Things I did do though were to reduce the font size and put up an option without the army shadows as it was looking a little crowded. I attempted to fix some colour issues as well... making the dead territory darker and putting back some more variation in the continents. I also moved that Cyprus shadow as well, hopefully that clears things up.

When I first put this together I thought it looked empty without army shadows. With the mountains there now though, I prefer it without them. Comments?

[XenHu]

I like it better with the army shadows..


-X

[fluffybunnykins]

Army shadows are only useful if the colour of the territory would make it hard to see the numbers. Absolutely unnecessary in this case, I think.
Maybe consider varying the curve that the continent names are written on for each one, so that they can navigate through some of the blanker areas, it'll make them more readable and possibly enhance the look & feel...
Nice looking map, I mean, really nice!

[spinwizard]

Here's an idea for you KEYOGI.



I've posted a link of an old map , with painted areas around the borders, if you used say...

yellow
dark green
light green
dark brown
light brown
& biege
(the exact colours you used for the first map you did)

That would look pretty good I think, plus it'd be easier to distinguish

you could even have them less obvious than you're 1st map if you differentiated between .eg. a greeny coulour adjacent to a yellowey colour to add more contrast between them.

can u try it with this!, keep everything the same colour (parchment) and the borders all colours (red, yellow, green, ect.)

[Enigma]

labels look great
i also like this map with army shadows, adds definition. i think it still looks a empty w/o them, even with the mountains.
dead territories look a lot better, maybe make them even darker?

another thought-- looking at bedplays pic- i really like the way qwert has used the graph paper idea as a background 4 his iwo jima map. maybe you could do something similar by adding longitude and latitude lines. that might help fill in some of the empty space in the larger territories, and maybe the army circles wouldnt be necessary. or maybe you could make the army circles just black lines which match the rest of the map, since you dont really need the interior of the circles lightened on this map.
another idea- use a thin calligraphy pen tip to draw the border lines. adds interest.

just suggestions, ideas to imitate the styles of the old maps.

[Molacole]

those mountains are INSANE. awesome job making those!!!


instead of filling in the bonuses with color are you going to just highlight the border lines with a color?

[KEYOGI]

maybe you could do something similar by adding longitude and latitude lines. that might help fill in some of the empty space in the larger territories, and maybe the army circles wouldnt be necessary. or maybe you could make the army circles just black lines which match the rest of the map, since you dont really need the interior of the circles lightened on this map.
another idea- use a thin calligraphy pen tip to draw the border lines. adds interest.

I tried the longitude and latitude lines before I got to the point of posting the map on the forums. I didn't like it.

I'm not sure the calligraphy pen is a good idea either, I think it'll just create confusion with lines of different thickness. I'll see what the concensus is on the army shadows though, I think I might lean that way... similar to the Middle Earth map.

instead of filling in the bonuses with color are you going to just highlight the border lines with a color?

Definately for next update.

[KEYOGI]

That's a taste of what to expect, I just wanted to make sure that's the direction people want to take this before I go putting a whole heap of hours into it.

I also thought about the option of having the same highlight for each territory, not just the continents, but using a thinner highlight. Opinions?

Are people happy with the font? I'm still not 100% on it and was thinking of trying the Aniron font from http://www.dafont.com/aniron.font. A bit of Lord of The Rings inspiration.

[onbekende]

*drools*

way better then the map now

[Bad Speler]

thats exactly what you need. I say just put that coloured outline around the entire continent, not countries

Might want to check out this font:
http://www.dafont.com/english.font

[Guiscard]

Yeh definitely those borders are the way to go...

I'd have them fading out slightly rather than a block, though (if you get me).

[spinwizard]

I love the sample

[Enigma]

thats exactly what you need. I say just put that coloured outline around the entire continent, not countries

Might want to check out this font:
http://www.dafont.com/english.font

i agree. really like the outline, but not around territories.

badspeler, i think that english font will be unreadable as labels.
the current font is good, but i agree keyogi, the aniron font might be even better.

[DiM]

do what guiscard said. fade the colour this way it will look better and also at the corners where the colour overlaps there will be no darker shades.
if you look closely there are some darker regions (like the one below the Jordan army circle)


PS: quench it. (i think this is the first post where i said a map needs to be quenched). this was a true inspiration for my 2 maps (especially the Age of Merchants one) i really like the way it looks and feels. it's like i almost want to touch it.

[Enigma]

do what guiscard said. fade the colour this way it will look better and also at the corners where the colour overlaps there will be no darker shades.
if you look closely there are some darker regions (like the one below the Jordan army circle)


PS: quench it. (i think this is the first post where i said a map needs to be quenched). this was a true inspiration for my 2 maps (especially the Age of Merchants one) i really like the way it looks and feels. it's like i almost want to touch it.

actually i liked the overlap w/ the slightly darker corners. gives it a more hand drawn appearance.