[WIP] Three Sticks Lake

[Lukc]

three-sticks-lake.jpg
Behold the wonderful artifacts my scanner discovered in the paper I used!

[Ilanthar]

Hey, that's very cool! Unusual but really nice style .

[Lukc]

Yeah, I'm mixing brush and pen. This was a second try, should be more in future. I'm trying to get away from purely representational mapping, to more abstract narrative mapping to support stories and games.

[nopkin]

Cool map! I love how it's entirely hand-made, including the labels. I think that gives it a particular charm. Also, great use of the brush.

[Lukc]

thanks!

[micaholism]

Whoa, this has jumped up to one of my favorite maps I've seen on here. Even though its spare (maybe because of that) it seems to tell a lot of story. ANd the names! Ah, I really love the names!

Maybe I just have science fantasy, post-post-post-post-apocalyptic semi medieval societies on the brain but it reminds my of the Dying Earth or the Book of the New Sun kinda, but also Horizon Zero Dawn. Either way, The style is really refreshing. If you ever have a WIP/tutorial for it, let me know?

[Lukc]

three-sticks-lake-color0.jpg

and here it is, in glorious color. Coloring is digital, photoshop using a couple of rough custom brushes bought a while back from Kyle's brushes (now available as part of CC).

[Lukc]

Thanks! But a tutorial? Alas I grabbed a brush pen and an 0.38 and an 0.28 mitsubishi uniball signo DX, and set to work

Ok, the process is simple:

sketch out rough outline with pencil
write down names with uniball (0.38 for all caps, 0.28 for lower case)
add symbols
add coastlines
add roads
pick up brush and add stylized terrain and trees.

[nopkin]

Good job! The color choice is great; I especially love the turquoise (or whatever that color is =) on the water.

But, IMHO, a flatter, less textured color layer would work better on this one, as it would allow the awesome pen and brush work to stand out. Nevertheless, congrats for this one!

I also dig the way it's only partially colored!

[Lukc]

The good thing about digital coloring is that both the color and bw versions remain