Avencourt Update

Added a few roofs I seem to have forgotten in the Royal Palace district (only district with blue roofs in this update). Also redid the line appearance, layering several images of the map with a different edge style set each time in SketchUp before capturing a screenshot. The resolution is far too low at the moment (only 72 dpi), but I wanted to get an idea of some of the colors I’ll be using, and what brush settings would work to give that “hand-painted in water-color/water-thinned ink” look. I do have a tablet, so the hand-painting part is literal, but I wanted to figure out how I’d like to achieve a good ‘paint over’ effect.

I think this is looking fairly good right now, although I see a few places I need to correct some lines, and I still need to add in the Royal Palace in the north-east corner, the old quarry Basse Mont near the center of map, with Tartarus Prison down in Basse Mont and the Piazza dei Gatti near that free-standing brown-roofed warehouse building. A few other details (like the gates, of course), and some indication of the terrain along the south, and with an increase in image quality to about 300 dpi, I should be finishing this map up.

Now I just need to figure out how to save out a high-quality map from Campaign Cartographer 3, which I should have bothered to figure out awhile ago …

 

Eventful Summer

Of a sort, really. Although I confess I don’t have much in the way of artistic or cartographic updates, this is primarily because I spent the summer looking for a job. I suppose I’ll finally have to accept that a bachelor’s, especially in English, really isn’t enough any more. At least not for any of the work I’d like to do long-term.

Anyway, I am still working on 2 commissions I received way back in late April/early May from 2 wonderfully understanding people, and I do have a rough map for one of those ready to share.

This is a top-down view of the buildings as laid out in Google SketchUp 8 over top of a rough sketch the client sent. The Royal Palace (which was described as being similar to the inner bailey of a castle) is missing, as is the prison gatehouse near the center of the map. I’m not sure how to create the correct terrain for this map in SketchUp, but since the final map style is supposed to be sort of 17th century aerial/bird’s eye view I’m actually thinking of just pulling the buildings up to get the vertical lines, setting the camera to parallel projection, and then printing out a screenshot to ‘trace’ over.

The other map commission I’m working on, the client has requested I use CC3; at the moment, I don’t have any exported images to put here, but I’m planning on having something up sometime this weekend. I’m currently working on placing the terrain symbols, working north to south (and roughly east to west).

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Finally, I’m also working on a map for a friend’s Warhammer 40k game. The maps can be found HERE; I’ll be uploading updates as I complete them, probably once a week or so for a while since they’re playing Saturdays.

 

Wo0t Maps!

Okay, that sounds really hyper-active far-side-of-the-moon can’t-find-my-brain (yeah, that’s a ‘zero’ in the title), but let me explain:

After avoiding drawing and even art in general for almost a year or so, I’ve been getting back into it. Over the past few months, I’ve picked up a couple commissions for illustrating maps of fictional worlds, and even created the front cover of an RPG manual (just a home-brew RPG by a group of friends down in Argentina, but it’s not a map! And they just signed off on the front cover and are hoping I can do the front pages of the Bestiary and Herbs sections of the manual (^o^)v ). Okay, so doesn’t sound like much of an achievement to warrant leek-speak (or leet-speak, for that matter), but effectively finishing one of the first major maps I took the commission for and finishing that RPG manual cover and finishing another map (okay, I feel done, but the commissioner has to sign off on it) AND getting not one, but two paid commissions from some truly excellent people … Now all of that is definitely enough to encourage a little slip in spelling and grammar.

Now, I’ve been asked to not share the RPG manual cover by the commissioner, but I can share the 2 maps I’ve just finished (okay, okay, as far as I know they’re finished):

Drawn for Matt Hoffman (Technospiritualist at the Cartographers’ Guild forums). He’s working on a novel, the first draft of which he’s almost done with (!), and this map is of the ‘world’ of the story.

This one was done for another novelist, Steve Pote (Blahman919 at the Cartographer’s Guild forums). He provided a rough hand-drawn map, which I essentially ‘traced over’ in Photoshop to ensure that everything was placed properly. The lighter lines … Hah. Are roads, which I need to label. Now I see that. Well, other than that, the map is done, as far as I know.

And in the interest of branching, here’s a small sketch I did earlier today. It’s actually part of a larger, image, but …

To see the whole image you’ll have to check out my new website, 99 Colored Umbrellas ! (I know, original, how original!) It’s still under construction, but you’ll find that image there, so check it out ^-^!