In Hraminas

[J.Edward]

I do a lot of thumbnail sketches of would be maps.
Most don't really go anywhere as there's only so many hours in a day and all.
There may well be plans for use later, but best laid plans may never be.
But, sometimes I do get around to messing with those thumbnails.
And this is one of them.

It's a little piece form back in the Mapvember 2017 period.
It's actually the first piece in that years mapvember thread.

Sometimes when I redraw a thumbnail, it gets really detailed and a good ways away from the original feel of the sketch.
For example, I am actually redrawing that other thumbnail in the first post of that 2017 thread.
It got a lot bigger and more detailed and has a good story attached to it.
But this one went a lot closer to the original sketch.

It did get attached to another story, or a character rather.
Rehd Dragon doesn't have a big story yet. But she does have a collection of tools.
Tools for her trade... a fighter, brawler, drinker, rover, rambler.. or as the authorities say.. a rogue.

The Ghostwoods and the hills of Golar, in Hraminas
from documents taken from the archives of Adun, in Tanur,
at the temple complex of Sati Sa, or Zadizan, as the Nuri prophets call it
in the archaic language of DevinTuro.

This, and a number of other documents and maps were found among the belongings
of the rogue, Rehd Dragon, when she was apprehended in Talos for starting
a drunken riot outside of the Pig's Pewter Round, a tavern just south of the Royal Square.

It was unclear if charges were intended to be sought against rogue Rehd,
as she seems to have escaped custody sometime later that evening.
Speculation surrounds a possible drinking game with the guards watching her at the time.
The city watch refused to comment further on that matter at this time.

If you have information regarding the current where-abouts of Rehd Dragon,
please contact the city watch in the Royal Square. A reward is in place for actionable information.

This one started out as one of my tiny little map thumbnails last year for mapvember 2017.
I decided to try out Paintstorm Studio and di all of the line work in it.
It's a really nice program to work with. I need to spend more time in it and learn more of the features.
But, I wanted this one done for Monday, so I finished up color and texture in PS, as I already have a good process.

This could possibly be in Nhyn. I feel like Nhyn is probably where we would find Rehd.
We'll assume that's where she is for now.
Hope everyone is having a good holiday season. Cheers, J

In Hraminas by jstevenson.jpg

[JonathanCR]

Beautiful! The script is so evocative.

[J.Edward]

Beautiful! The script is so evocative.

Thanks Jonathan
The script was a fun experiment.
I was trying to get a sort of brush shape to the characters.

[Kellerica]

I love how low detail level is in this. Great colors too.

[J.Edward]

I love how low detail level is in this. Great colors too.

Thanks Kell
I've been playing around with some lower level things of late.
They can be a fun option and very cool visually.
And I think they tend to be a bit more realistic for in world maps.
That's part of the motivation.

[Abu Lafia]

Lovely piece John! I always enjoy your worldbuilding around even the smallest works you do, so evocative and inspiring indeed. The mountains give a strong east asian cartographic vibe to the map although they look pretty similar to your usual regional/local scale mountain style (maybe it's the dark green tone in contrast to the rest?). The type is great and i love the little variations in the wave linework...just spectacular!

[ThomasR]

The mountains give a strong east asian cartographic vibe to the map although they look pretty similar to your usual regional/local scale mountain style (maybe it's the dark green tone in contrast to the rest?). The type is great and i love the little variations in the wave linework...just spectacular!

I completely agree and I think it's because there are no hard edges to the mountains. Spectacular work and, what an awesome script !

[Voolf]

This looks almost like your other PS maps. Af course it's great, but too bad you did not have time to do colour it in Paintstorm. Wonder what the effect would be.
The software itself looks quite nice and it is not that expensive for a lifetime license with all updates. I have to try it out someday too.

[J.Edward]

Lovely piece John! I always enjoy your worldbuilding around even the smallest works you do, so evocative and inspiring indeed. The mountains give a strong east asian cartographic vibe to the map although they look pretty similar to your usual regional/local scale mountain style (maybe it's the dark green tone in contrast to the rest?). The type is great and i love the little variations in the wave linework...just spectacular!

Thanks Abu Nice to see you back around.
They were supposed to be of a more asian feel.
I'm trying to get used to not overdoing the detail in every area of a map. ;P
This was sort of an attempt to focus on less, like just the mountains. Or the waves.

I completely agree and I think it's because there are no hard edges to the mountains. Spectacular work and, what an awesome script !

Thanks Thomas
The script was fun to work on.

This looks almost like your other PS maps. Af course it's great, but too bad you did not have time to do colour it in Paintstorm. Wonder what the effect would be.
The software itself looks quite nice and it is not that expensive for a lifetime license with all updates. I have to try it out someday too.

The upside, for me at least, was that I was able to do all the linework quickly without dealing with that stupid PS/wacom pressure drop issue, which is what motivates me to try apps other than PS.
The problem with working in other apps isn't usually the linework phase.
Most other apps are actually better with line work than PS is.
But the texture part...

In PS, I have created a number of brushes for different things.
Some few apps can import PS brushes, but often they really don't work out the same.
Paintstorm can import them i think, but doesn't rtetain all the features.
So I will have to take more time to work through those.
Then there's the issue of the blending brush.
I'm not sure if other apps blending brushes are going to work well for me.
It will take a lot of trial and testing, and I just didn't have the time right now.
Hopefully I will.

That said, Paintstorm has no text tool, so I would be back in PS anyways, for now.

[Voolf]

That said, Paintstorm has no text tool, so I would be back in PS anyways, for now.

Oh wow, that is a big drawback. Well the text tool in Krita is not great either so i have to use Inkscape or Affinity Photo for more sophisticated text edit :/
Anyway, still worth to try it out i guess.