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!

 

 

Therafim

UPDATE (finally)

Well, it certainly took me long enough (far too long) to update this map. Not even the holidays or my part time job starting up again can really justify how long it’s taken me to get this far; all I can say is that it hasn’t been easy. Campaign Cartographer was difficult enough to get a handle on, and it has quickly become my single most disliked software at least in regards to cartography. That being said, I think I can be reasonably proud of how this map is turning out, and I’m optimistic about finishing it up. So – here’s what I’ve managed to get done so far, with a close-up shot of one of the most recently finished sections to show the resolution of the final image. Note that the full world map image is at the full resolution and as such is a significantly large image (600 dpi, ~11″ x ~7″).

Full map, at full 600 dpi resolution; very large file, may load slowly

 

Graven

Alright, here’s an update of my map of Graven. I’m trying something a little new here (or rather, I’m retrying something I did for an earlier version of the city). I haven’t erased out all the streets or plazas for this area yet, as you can see around the river area in the lower right and then also over on the left side. Right now I’m focusing on the streets, but I think there’s going to be a park or two in there somewhere, and I want to put in courtyards and such. I also have to work on the ‘coasts’ – not all the buildings sit right up against the water’s edge, of course. Some will project out over the water, others will be set back. And of course bridges are missing, and I need to figure out how to draw in the smaller, semi-private docks on the water next to individual buildings/blocks. That is for later, however, as I have a lot of homework and other studying to do. Once I have a portion of this map done, I want to take it into Google SketchUp and see what I can do to create a 3D map. I also want to print this whole thing out as a line drawing so I can trace over it and create an isometric hand drawn map. Which sounds impossibly overly ambitious of me, but I want to give it a try.