World Reduced

Yes, like every world map. What's going on lately, everyone is making small maps!

@CBT: I use GIMP for my editing. Also, colours is the priority now. Do they need changing? I made them a lot brighter on my remake, should I lower them a bit?

Colors / water will all change greatly with the texture. What I do is make the colors one layer for each region (continent), then get a monochromatic texture (no color) and paste it on top of that layer. But then I use Fuzzy select in Gimp (U key) or color select tool (Shitf+O), pick the color layer, and with either of those tools, select the continent you are currently working on - this should create a mask of exactly that continent. Then go back to the texture layer. Under Select drop down menu, select invert (ctrl+I) in gimp. This flips the selected area. Hit Delete, and it will create a perfect layer of texture for that continent. Then you can play with opacity / and blend Mode (right above opacity) until the texture looks good. THEN you can go back to the color layer, and go to Colors drop down menu, and pick colorize or hue saturation lightness tools. And use these to finalize your color. If you want more or less of the overlayed texture to show, select the texture layer, and under colors drop down menu, select brightness contrast tool. Increase contrast, and make darker for more texture. Do the opposite for less texture.

Right now I like 40% best I think.

I attempted to create textures and also changed the ocean slightly. This was made before CBT's texture advice: [spoiler=Untextured][img]http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/5140035.jpg[/img][/spoiler] [spoiler=Textured][img]http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/5141201.jpg[/img][/spoiler] I'm fairly sure this is awful, but I'll retry with CBT's advice.

Yeah, I liked your previous try better, before you restarted the outline. The deep colours worked better than the pastel tints you are using right now I think. There also seems to be some aliasing along the outlines, but that might be image scaling too.

I think it's pretty good right now. Just play with Hue / saturation on the ocean. It's a bit pastel white washed now. I kinda like the saturation level, maybe just darker, and a touch towards green (counter intuitive, but just try it and see what it does) on hue. You also have to do this on the continent colors. They have to be a bit off the color wheel [spoiler][img]http://www.conservapedia.com/images/8/83/Colorwheel.GIF[/img][/spoiler] Because the player circles are spot on these main 6 tones. So you have to go maroon, not red, gold, not yellow, etc. Think gritty mean angry thoughts when you pick colors. It does look more professional right now. It's getting there. (I hate the title font for some reason, but that's personal preference; seems flat and gigantic to me. Using gimp, try shrink it in size I think it's HUGE as is, and then for some fun, use Xach-Effect (Filters -> lights and shadows) on the title, and see if that does anything to pull it off the page) [spoiler=on a personal note] Thank you for your time and work on this. It's not easy being corrected a million times and I can't imagine how much time you put into the northern hemisphere map being yelled at. Good work, glad your learning curve is steep.[/spoiler]

Thanks CBT, that's very encouraging, it brought a tear to my eye :'(! ;D Work on this has been very little today as I spent 5 hours cementing the cracks in our patio and other tasks today :(. OK, I prioritised Colours/Textures earlier, but I'll sort out text/numbers/title first, as it is beginning to look like progress is slowing. Psymon suggested a change of font (calibri is quite boring), so expect that within the next update or so.

As of yet, only text changed, including Title & Signature. Is the font better? And the title? [spoiler=Latest Text][img]http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/5142230.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

That works for the country names. Mini map numbers seem huge to me still. Not a fan of the font used for main title. Go to Abstractfonts.com search for "AugustusBeveled" See if you like that. EDIT: Here: http://www.abstractfonts.com/font/15809 If you download, you have to unzip the .ttf file. Hit the windows (start) button, and type: fonts Hit enter. Copy and paste the .ttf file into this fonts folder. Restart all you programs to see the new font.

I forgot the minimap nos. The title font is the same as the territory names font, but I'll try yours. Edit: Sorry CBT but I really don't like this font! I will look for an alternative. It's just the bevelled look...

Or use any font on abstractfonts you like for personal use or commercial use. If you really like one that is not available for your use, you can still Type it out, and trace is loosely with the path tool, and stroke it to make your own similar font (but not exact) so you don't break any laws haha.

Look for Grandesign Neue Serif here: [url=http://www.abstractfonts.com/pop_charts/lately]http://www.abstractfonts.com/pop_charts/lately[/url] Is it any good for the title? I don't want anything too complicated.

In my opinion, the font should look like something close to the fonts used in the other World maps. Preferably something like the one used in World Classic but just a little different

Yeah my personal taste is always crazy fonts - but some thing more classic and refined is needed here. I like the one you picked. I would use that one or something with similar lower case letters and just a touch of cursive on the upper case letters. Then write it in two lines World Reduced Which I think you already did anyway. For the territory names, something plain and a touch bold. I like all caps for those, but that's personal preference not really guidance