Creative Mapmaking

05

Colour Studies: Use your Palettes 

​Goal =  to get a general impression of the colours you will use

​If you haven’t already, take a photo of your sketch (if you did it on paper) and email it to yourself

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Click through the example on the left to see its variations.

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1. Open Photoshop, create a new file:

   • Dimensions = 8.5 x 11 inches (a regular size of paper)

   • Resolution = 300 dpi

   • Drag your sketch file into photoshop, click the check at the top to add it.

     • You may need to stretch it to fill as much of the canvas as possible first

   • Your sketch should be on its own layer... rename the new layer as “sketch”

     • reduce to the opacity to about 20%

     • Change the layer mode from “normal” to “multiply”

2. Work back to front

   • Background layer: select your ground-coloured swatch

     • Alt+Backspace will fill the whole layer with the selected swatch

   • Dark colours will recede

     • Use a darker tone than the ground for your borders

   • Using colours in the same family creates unity

   • Go for the General Shape --- don’t worry about details yet

     • Use a bigger brush to help you focus on simple colours

3. Doing a lot of work upfront to save yourself time down the road.

   • Ex: if you decided all of the wrought-iron is black, that choice is made every time it comes up

4. Roads = start with thick lines to link major hubs

   • Then add thin ones to break them up further

   • These will change in your final piece. Again, you’re aiming for the general impression.

5. Restrict your palette

   • Shades with/in same colour family creates unity

   • Ex: do the whole town, then add contrasting colours

   • Unique colours will make special landmarks stand out

   • Let colour choices help you tell your story

   • Ex) blue for old parts of town, ex) red roofs for commonfolk

   • Keep your Shading Simple

6. Done?

   • ​Create a layer group of the background + sketch layers. Call it “Colour Study 1” 

06

Trying Other Options

1. Duplicate your Colour Study 1 layer group

   • click and drag the layer group onto the [+]

2. Merge the background + sketch in the duplicate folder by selecting the sketch and pressing CTRL+E (that merges a layer with the one below)

   • Rename it “Colour Study 2”

3. Use the magic wand tool

   • Set the Tolerance to 10

   • Untick “contiguous” (allows PS to select all instances of that colour)

   • Select a colour from your palette and

     • Either press Alt+Backspace or use a really big brush

4. This does not need to be an exact replica (though with swapped colours) from the first

   • Using the brush tool lets you pick and choose where the new colours go.

5. What would your map look like in a different season? A different time?

   • Are they going to be as good as your first one? Who knows. That’s not what matters. What matters is continuing to push yourself and explore beyond the first idea that pops in your head. We did this with the sketches, and now we do it again with colour studies.

6. Create 2 alternate colour studies

   • So that’s at least 3 colour studies altogether.

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07

Flat Shapes + Using Layers

Use the arrows to see how the layers stack build up

1. At this point your file should have the following layers:

   • A new layer group “Final Artwork”

     • This group should contain other new groups, ex: “Background” and “Forest”

       • Within each of these groups have the following 6 layers:

         1. Details

         2. Above 2 (for on/above the roof or in front of your landmark)

         3. Above 1 (for the roof)

         4. Base (LOCK THIS LAYER after you block in the colours to stay in the lines)

         5. Below 1 (for parts of the building peaking from behind)

         6. Below 2

   • 1 sketch layer (opacity 10-20%)

2. Choose the right tool for the job:

   • Mouse + Keyboard = geometric look

   • Drawing tablet = organic

   • Brush tool tips!

     • Brush + Alt = Eyedropper tool

     • [ and ] increase/decrease size

     • Straight Lines: click then hold shift and click where you want the end of the line to be

       • If you drag before letting go, you will get a perfectly | or  ̶  line

     • Get sharper corners by crossing your lines, and then erasing the excess to get your point

3. You already did the work--- this stage is mainly rendering and polishing the artwork

   • Listen to a podcast. Some LoFi. Get into the ZONE.

     • Another word for "The Zone" is Satori​, meaning "thoughtless awareness" (what to aim for and often can access it through sports, meditation, etc.)​​

4. You can draw multiple times until you’re happy with it

5. Duplicate repeating elements

   • Select with the marquee tool

   • Hold Alt to duplicate, shift to move along evenly

   • CTRL+T to reflect

     • You want to balance repetitions with some unique qualities

       • Ex: wrought iron fences. The pole is the same over and over again, but the tops are redrawn for subtle differences.

6. How to do Curvatures:

   • Window > Paths: New Path (name it)

     • Have the Correct colour + brush selected

     • Hit ENTER

     • CTRL-click the path’s name to deselect it (or click the dark grey area of panel)

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Click here to download the example project (it can be useful to pick apart how someone else did it)

08

Using Texture

• Less is more

• Think of how cartoons are produced:

  • Painted backgrounds

  • Flat/Cell-shaded characters

• Ex) Frame of trees

  1. Lock the layer

  2. Use a dry media brush

  3. Same swatch, but edit it to be slightly darker

  4. Use shapes + light direction to inform the viewer

     1. Use SHIFT to help draw horizontal shadows--- use the same brush for unity

• Don’t be afraid to mix things up & break the rules to create contrast