[WIP] Dor-en-Ernil - The Land of the Prince: ...Yes, another ME map ;)

[Abu Lafia]

Well, i couldn't resist the idea and had to head towards Middle-earth too...
Being artistically too far away to "challenge" anyone of the illustrious fellows who planned to do some mapping of Middle-Earth, nonetheless my imagination was triggered and i started to plan the journey.
Bearing in mind what chick said about the "overmappedness" of ME, i didn't need to search for too long to find a place to map:
Excarvating some old memories of reading "Der Herr der Ringe" for the first time, one scene came to my mind.
The "heroic" and "noble" appearance of Prince Imrahil and his "Swan-Knights" in Minas Tirith. The name "Dol-Amroth" opened up a even wider space of imagination for me, like many places never described directly by Tolkien.

So it's Dor-en-Ernil that i try to map here, "The Land of the Prince", a region in South-Gondor around the peninsula of Belfalas.
For the basic landform i drew heavily on the fantastic MERP maps by Peter Fenlon, which differs a bit from the maps by Tolkien himself. I also might take some inspiration from the MERP Sourcebook "Havens of Gondor", the only detailed, but "not-even-semi-canonical" description of the region.

DorEnErnilWIP1.jpg

I just started with the mountain-range on the Belfalas peninsula, as usual done with my good old mouse in gimp. Being (still) a bloody noob in drawing, i'd love to hear any comments, critique or suggestions.

Cheers,
AL

[J.Edward]

Excellent. I'm glad you're in on this.
I like your choice too. I will happily watch the progress.
I also utilize info from ICE's MERP rpg. They did try their best to be as canonical as possible but ME is a big place and Tolkien left a lot of areas sort of 'empty' in a way.
Or at least somewhat bereft of detail.
You know, I took the challenge not so much as challenging each others skill, but more as challenging each other to try new things. I like that perspective.

[Abu Lafia]

Excellent. I'm glad you're in on this.
I like your choice too. I will happily watch the progress.

Thanks a lot J.Edward, i hope it's ok with you, that i map a part of Gondor, since you said you're going to map it too?

I also utilize info from ICE's MERP rpg. They did try their best to be as canonical as possible but ME is a big place and Tolkien left a lot of areas sort of 'empty' in a way.
Or at least somewhat bereft of detail.

Yeah they did a great job, i was more joking on that point, you know, i have a pretty sceptical stance towards "canonization" in general

You know, I took the challenge not so much as challenging each others skill, but more as challenging each other to try new things. I like that perspective.

I absolutely know that this is your perspective on it and actually the whole idea behind all this here at the CG, and i really like it! I just wanted to humbly show my respect for you guys, cause i admire the work of each of you.

[J.Edward]

Thanks a lot J.Edward, i hope it's ok with you, that i map a part of Gondor, since you said you're going to map it too?

But of course. Since I started doing the whole of ME I'll end up doing all the areas but from much further out. So any area anyone wants to do is fine by me, including doing the same ones I'm doing.
My view on 'canon' is getting that way too. I've dealt with more writers and have found that many times they just didn't think of something or about something, or even didn't know enough to deal with a thing so it just gets left out. No real 'canon' involved in the end.

[- Max -]

Great you jumped in Seems you're off to a good start here!

[ChickPea]

Yay, Abu! I'm glad you're joining in with this, and this is a great choice. Faramir was my Book Boyfriend in LotR, but I always liked the noble Prince Imrahil too, so it's good to see his lands get some attention. I like the colour scheme you've chosen, and the blue sea is very striking against the pale land colour.

Looking forward to watching this come together.

[Abu Lafia]

Great you jumped in Seems you're off to a good start here!

Thank you Max!

But of course. Since I started doing the whole of ME I'll end up doing all the areas but from much further out. So any area anyone wants to do is fine by me, including doing the same ones I'm doing.
My view on 'canon' is getting that way too. I've dealt with more writers and have found that many times they just didn't think of something or about something, or even didn't know enough to deal with a thing so it just gets left out. No real 'canon' involved in the end.

Yeah, things usually get nasty very quick, if some persons think they can speak authoritatively about what other persons "really" meant with their sayings or writings... history (especially of religions) is full of good examples...

Yay, Abu! I'm glad you're joining in with this, and this is a great choice. Faramir was my Book Boyfriend in LotR, but I always liked the noble Prince Imrahil too, so it's good to see his lands get some attention. I like the colour scheme you've chosen, and the blue sea is very striking against the pale land colour.
Looking forward to watching this come together.

"Book Boyfriend" that's good! Faramir and his guerilleros were ofc way cooler, as was the Strider/Aragorn metamorphosis compared with the rather "onedimensional noble" Imrahil. Since i usually prefer the more broken, complex or vague themes, i think it might be fun to tackle the "plain good/noble" in this one.

Btw. i continued the work on the mountains. It's very exhausting on a big map like that. I also made the lines thinner, since they semed a bit too strong.
The next step after finishing the mountains will be the placing of the missing rivers, so i can work on the forests. This will propably be the hardest part, since i avoided doing them in most of my maps till now.
DorEnErnilWIP2.jpg
Cheers,
AL

[ChickPea]

I like the thinner stroke better on the mountains, and looking forward to seeing what comes next.

[Abu Lafia]

So i did some tests on the forests, and i have to say for my first handdrawn forests on a map , i'm positively surprised by the outcome
Since the mountain range on the Belfalas peninsula is called "Ered Tarthonion" (Mountains of Lofty Pines) there was no chance in avoiding doing some kind of forest on the map.

After some testing i decided to use pretty much the same technique i used for the mountains: Outlines on a seperate layer, doing the highlights (and shadows) with the dodge/burn tool in gimp directly on (a copy of) my "greyscale parchment" backgroundlayer. Between the two i did the coloring on another layer (set to overlay) in dark green.
DorEnErnilWIP3.jpg
While the first test (the left forest) looked pretty chaotic, the second one on the right turned out better than expected. It even worked to "lay" the forest over the crest(?) of the mountain... at least in my view... Although it seems pretty time-consuming it might be a good model for the other forests on the map.

Edit: made some more of them...here we go:
DorEnErnilWIP4.jpg

One problem i have now, is that the surrounding mountains look somewhat detail-less or empty in comparison. What do you think???

[Diamond]

Hey Abu, first of all, great work on this so far. I'm loving all these ME maps.

I really like those forests - they do look pretty convincing. I agree that the mountains seem a little sparse in comparison - what about doing some more line work / subtle shading or even some faint crosshatching?