Grainstreet, a small village map.

[Daia Maps]

Hello everyone,

It's been a while cause I've been learning to draw all over again. I finally got a drawing tablet and I've been doing some training. I mean to make a career out of drawing maps so I ask for all tips and critiques you guys have on this map. I already know some things I don't like, for example I have to find a better way to draw the forests, and I'm not happy with the way the text and the borders blend into the image.

But in general I'm quite content with my progress.

I also wanna make sure you all know the artists that influenced me: Daniel Maps, Map Effects and Mike Schley.

Grainstreet-Compressed.jpg

[XCali]

Hehe, besides the inner forest, I feel your text is perfectly fine. I've seen text that dominate the map, taking away from the actual artwork, so this works well.
Same with the border, borders can sometimes dominate an image. But yours does what it needs to.

The individual trees are good, though the inner forest can maybe be tweaked to better represent it.

One possible nitpick I'd make, there is an argument that for this small of a village there might be too many crop farms. But it is debatable.

Still all in all, a good (evening) map.

[Daia Maps]

Thank you so much for the feedback!

I'm glad you liked the text and boarders. They have been growing on me a little.

As for your nitpick, I'm happy you said it cause I love to make believable places so if something feels off, I want to know, so thank you again!

[Turambar]

Beautiful village map! I would actually have to disagree on the farms, as I think the field to population ratio needed to support medieval era towns is higher than you might think. Especially since crop yields were much lower then than in modern times.

[Daia Maps]

That's what I thought too. From what I know most peasants farm as their main role, so I figured most houses would have a farm.
What I'm looking into improving is the layout of these farms, so far I'm just winging it, but I recently remembered the Three Field system they had in Feudal Europe and I'm gonna try to incorporate that more in my maps.

[XCali]

Beautiful village map! I would actually have to disagree on the farms, as I think the field to population ratio needed to support medieval era towns is higher than you might think. Especially since crop yields were much lower then than in modern times.

The part that I am really grappling with, that almost each house small or large has a crops area almost or larger than ten times the size of their actual house? It doesn't seem realistic, taking into account motivation, the poor, labor force/or lack thereof. Different professions, even some as hunters and gatherers. Definitely still debatable.

[Larb]

It takes a not insignificant acreage to feed a household. It will vary a bit by soil quality, farming techniques, and what crops they are growing. And then you need to factor in the other things such as crop rotation/leaving fields fallow. And plots for other things (because you're not just eating a single crop). You can find tons of data for all of this online and it can be fun to read about it. So if anything, those fields are too small lol.

As for the map, it's good, I really like it.

[Daia Maps]

I'm glad you liked!

Maybe bigger, somewhat communal fields will make more sense. I'm thinking some homes will have a small "backyard" for their own small crops or perhaps a chicken coop or another animal pen, some houses will have no field to represent the different crafting roles, and in further areas of the village there will bigger field that follow the three field system.

I'm thinking something like this image I found in Agriculture in the Middle Ages on wiki.
1280px-Three_Field_System.svg.png

[Larb]

When I draw village maps, I usually do them with just the bigger fields being hinted at or out of view. It's not really something you need to worry too much about, in my opinion.

[Nagorak]

If you want to learn about the actual structure of a medieval village, a good resource is Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies. I can summarize some of the main points I got out of reading it.

With it being said that "fantasy village" ≠ "medieval village", if you're going for historical accuracy then most "village" maps get the details wrong. One surprising thing is that medieval houses actually had fairly sizable yards. It makes more sense when you think about it, for a couple of reason. First of all, villages are not just small versions of towns, they're actually rural areas where space tends to be less of a limiting factor. As a result the houses will usually be spaced out more and will have a fenced in yard. The yard is not just for leisure like a modern yard, it actually serves a functional purpose to house livestock such as chickens, or maybe the owner's only cow when it's not out in the pasture, or maybe a pig, etc. They were also used for vegetable gardens, separate from the crops grown out in the actual fields. The yards actually were not small either. I'm going from memory but I think it was suggested that the average yard was between 1/4 acre and 1/2 acre (it may have actually been the larger end of that range).

Then in terms of the fields, the fields were not attached to each house like would be the case with say a modern farm or ranch. Communal fields would be all around the village, but they would be divided into strips owned by each family. These strips would not be contiguous with one another but would be spread all around. Daia Maps provided a good link to read more about that, so I won't go into any more detail here.

Then the social structure of the village... well, let's just say that it's not anything like what is presented in fantasy fiction, arguably for good reason because it is so different from modern society that it would be nearly unintelligible to the modern reader and would require a great deal of explanation. Basically it doesn't make sense to delve that deeply into that unless you're writing historical fiction or the social structure of the village serves a pivotal role in your story.

With your current map, I would say the current "fields" in the map could realistically be each house's yard (just put a fence around them). Just add some fields in the outskirts and you're good. Arguably the woods directly around the village would have been entirely cut down, unless the ground there was bad for farming. But like I said, medieval village is not really the smae thing as fantasy village, so if you want to take some creative license that's fine. Just if you want full historical accuracy probably you should have fields in the areas where there is currently woods.