ORTHODOXY Sketches

Just a quick update here, but a little while ago I added a page to the Projects section – it’s called “Sketches” (was “Sketches & Miscellaneous”). Basically it’s just a ‘running gallery’ of sketches, WIPs, and mostly unfinished things I’ve been doing recently. Last night I did a few sketches for my friend Jordan Voltz’s KickStarter Project, Orthodoxy RPG. Below is my favorite color sketch (there are 3 additional sketches on the Sketches page), as well as one of the new headers for the page sections.

The Duellist, one of the traits in the Orthodoxy RPG

I chose to do a less traditional representation and focused on “duality” (a purposeful mis-reading of “duel”). I actually reasoned it out, too – duels often occur(ed) between friends/acquaintances over perceived slights & wrongs, so “friend & enemy”.

Overview header image for Orthodoxy RPG Kickstarter

Jordan asked me to create some new headers (or update the old ones; I chose to make new ones) with some sort of embellishment rather than just text on a textured background. The nature of the Kickstarter site doesn’t allow for changing the page background or even the color of the font, so I went with all new headers, black on white. One of the major rewards we’ve offered are laminated, hand-embellished player screens (“sect screens”) – 5 to each backer pledging $100+! – and we’ve got 2 backers who’ll be receiving those. I chose the font and the design for the header with those screens in mind; depending on what I can find at an acceptable price, I’m hoping we’ll be able to make the sect screens out of fairly heavy-duty parchment (or kraft-paper-colored) paper rather than white/off-white. That will best offset the hand-embellishment, I think – except an update about those player/sect screens fairly soon!

 

 

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 …

 

Map Commissions

I recently checked back in with the commissioner of the Harmak map (Rossik, on the Cartographer’s Guild forums), and he was kind enough to like it a lot. Although I’m not sure it’s “perfect”, he likes it and that’s what matters most. He was even kind enough to ask for my website so he could share it with others, so thank you very much! It’s been a pleasure working with you.

I also checked in with the commissioner of the map of Nogarung, and updated it. Here’s the latest version:

Now, last week I found another request on the Cartographer’s Guild forums, for a “detailed world map for a high fantasy novel“. I e-mailed the commissioner, gorilla0132, and he kindly send over an example map of the style he was looking for, which was quite helpful along with the map he drew of the world himself. It took me awhile to figure out the waves around the edges of the continent, and this map is by no means finished. I thought it would be best to check in with the commissioner before continuing. Here is the first draft of the map (Eos):

For those of you who are wondering, yes – I am taking commissions. For maps, character sketches, SketchUp models, etc. I am a little busy what with finals at my university, but I welcome any and all commissions (to be accepted at my discretion), and would be happy to work with you on any project.