I noticed a topic about hand drawn art.
Thought this might be a solution for me. But I will have to learn it myself.
The problem is that I have "cut out" seamless pictures doing the job for me. But the edges between 2 pictures are often really ugly. And some are still not usefull (swamps).
My first and only goal would be drawning land art. Something like what you can see in Advanced Squad Leader.
While I already have some stuff drawn myself. I am a real amateur (like a 10 or less year old, while I am beyond 30 now). How can I raise my skills that I can be a bit happy about it?
I want to draw basic landscapes.
To draw (everything from top):
Tree's (Forest)
Dessert
Snow
Mountains
Water
Roads
Grasslands
All 7 in the same style. So I don't need to borrow anything any more from the internet.
***
The second stage would be scanning some basic pictures. And edit them in such a way that they would be new sheets to add to one main picture. Thus a map is formed from basic colours.
I have 28 now, but this is confusing and a lot of work. If possible, like only 10 colours would be a good outcome for me.
Thus I make a basic map with colours. And these colours are replaced by the art that is scanned by me.
***
Another way would be making the entire map by pen. While using a blanc print with the regions. And copy this map after scanning when needed.
Well, I have tree's and I have tree's.
My last project went like this:
The first tree's. Are simply a photo of seemless tree's viewed from the top. I have this basic layer that has colours in paint. A cloudy map would be the best description. In a way, I do compile pictures together.
I apply the seemless foto's to each of the colours.
Dark green has these tree's.
Light green would be for example grass.
Thus if I want to picture a map with a lot of grass, then a couple of tree's and eventually a big forest. I start with this basic map.
I make the background light green (instead of ticking every little cloud)
Then I start replacing some light green with dark green. A single tree would be a little irregular hexagon. The lines are "wavy". To indicate the randomness of a shape. Each region however has the same format. And is almost entirely mirrored to itself as well.
When all is done. I get a picture that starts looking like a map. However, the light grey helping lines need to be removed. Darker objects first, by light grey/dark green switch filling. Eventually, compiled clouds don't have the grey lines any more.
I then copy paste the entire picture into the seemless topview photo's. Thus applying a real texture to the map entirely.
With only gras and forrest, I only need to apply this twice.
There is a maximum of 28. Which is troublesome since paint itself only allows for 16 direct colours.
Lastly I add some height markers.
If you pm me your email. I can send in a map that I have in my email. Than you can take a look at it and comment. (Already taking note of mistakes and ugly stuff, so no harm if you burn me there, but at least you know where I am stationed right now)
***
[seemless pictures are all top view photos]
It looks awfull right now, even worse than before :D
O well, stepping stones means you need to do step backwards.
During this process I noticed that having simple colours often looks better. Somehow a childlish drawing looks so much better. So I thougt of having things drawn instead. And I can paste these little pictures into the map. Instead of having to tick clouds into colour.
In the past I did this too. But then I used seemless pictures to compile regions with smaller object. This was much more work than my last project. And it looked systematic instead of natural.
My last resort would be making objects again with the seemless pictures. But then paste them separately into the bigger picture. If I am really happy with every object, this could work. However, I figured I might as well be drawing them from scratch and make them look hand drawn. At least, the combinations would not "curse"?