Cruzamento De Rio (50 years later)

[Coyotemax]

For those of you who followed the WIP, thank you very much for your constructive comments. For those of you who have not followed the Cruzamento storyline, the town of Cruzamento De Rio featured in this map has evolved a bit Originally I was going to do some of the earlier stages of the town, but I got inspired by another tutorial (on walls this time) and worked over the effects to fit in with this map style.

The town itself has expanded, mostly on the west bank. The walls have been completely rebuilt, including tearing down the original stone section to be replaced with more sturdy construction. There is a second mill now based on the design of the first, a dual waterwheel variation. The bridge has been rebuilt with stone (they found a spot locally that made for a good quarry). A second bridge has been added, this one is still made of wood partly for economic reasons and partly for defense. With enough advance warning of an approaching army, the bridge can be dismantled, but if there is no time for that it is rigged for easy destruction (1 engineer can knock out a key support that will start a chain reaction to collapse the entire thing - great fun if there is siege equipment headed for the gate).

There is also a winery that's become so prosperous they can afford their own defenses against local raiders - though they've worked closely with the local military to ensure that if an invading army tries to take it over as a base for operations against the town, they will be in for some very nasty surprises

The internal layout has also changed, many of the industries are still in the same places, but there have been a few very major changes - most notably the paddocks have (finally) been moved out from the center of town. Storage has also been moved from the town proper (on both sides of the river) to the dock areas. Military presence has been increased, and the town is now recruiting locally, and has a hefty presence. Bandits no longer harass the town itself, but are still a problem for the outlying farms.

There's more I could go into about the history of the town, but you can get it from the WIP threads or the previous Cruzamento map

Incidentally, I don't think I mentioned it last time, but the colours used on the cartouche are no accident - Gold for the wheat, Slate Blue/Gray for the river, and Red for the meat industry Like I said, sometimes i put way too much thought into things...

[Steel General]

Very, very nice!

Love the Sanford & Son reference (that show was hilarious).

[DMT]

Very Nice idea...


DMT

[Ramah]

Wow, this map is simply amazing.

[RjBeals]

God.

Everytime I visit this forum, i'm just blown away. Here we go again...

This map is simply amazing. I will rate it on the top 3 that i've seen here so far (I think Westeros makes the #1 spot though). The detail you put in is simply amazing. I wish I could watch you create this so i could understand. The way you can see the current move past the bridge pylons, the crumbled piles of rock around the wall sea towers, the images along the entire red border (did you draw those btw???) and the grouping of trees along the edges - It's like i could just walk right down Kings Road. Oh and your use of shadow is perfect.

I can only guess you used photoshop for this... and maybe a couple texture overlays - but it looks hand drawn. Maps like this light the fire under me to do better. You must spend countless hours on this, but man the finished product is so worth it. Congrats man. You've really impressed me.

[torstan]

Really nice. The detail is just great. Well done.

A couple of nitpicks. Your shadows are beautifully done almost everywhere, but your yellow thatched roofs are out. The light on Newtown is inconsistent - a lot of them look lit top left, whereas the overall map lighting is bottom right. The warehouses on the dock suffer from this too, especially Westwharf. It seems to just be these yellow thatched buildings that have the problem. I think that if you flip the ones that are obviously out you'll be fine.

On the subject of shadows, I couldn't help but notice that your towers cast the same length of shadow on the walls as on the ground, suggesting that the walls are actually all at ground level. If the wall is higher up, then the cast shadow from the tower should be shorter on the wall top than on the ground. Also, your walls should be casting longer shadows to make them fit in with the height of the towers - otherwise your towers are really huge. This is particularly true in the case of Highgate to the SW. I'm guessing the top of that rectangular gate section is higher than the surrounding walls, but the long shadow cast by the tower at the SE edge of the gate suggests that it is all the same height as the wall.

Sorry to nitpick, but you've done such an amazing job with the rest of the map that it would be a shame to miss the little details. It's a stunner and you rightly deserve all the praise you'll get for it. Well done!

[Coyotemax]

i do appreciate the feedback, and you are absolutely correct.

I've been considering another town map, and lighting/shadowing (bane of my existence) will get much closer attention

[torstan]

No problem. Sorry to call you on it, but we're all here to get better

[Coyotemax]

Absolutely!! I'm not offended in any way when someone points something out to me. That's why I'm here

[Ronson2k10]

Firstly .. Looks very much like artwork and that is a very good thing. Color choices are great.

If I may make a suggestion though. I've looked at quite a few maps over the years and you may want to try your hand at a dated map. That is black and white well perhaps black and Sepia.

Map makers are very much surveyers of land. Gathering information first hand in many cases but also from historic documents (if they exist). Depending on the use of the map? They could be mass produced or a one off. In your case the above would perhaps be a one off. As the technology to mass produce it would be greater then the technology shown in the map (most likely). So it would be a map that was produced after the let's say mass produced one would have been created. By mass produced that could mean printing (press) or hand copied. If hand copied the map could include a serial number as well. Such a map would have hand written fonts and the like and tiny inclusions. As each map would be hand drawn. To further age the map you could use symbols to illustrate differences in topography and so on.

Always date your map. Even if it's a mythical place and therefore has it's own time. This can add so very much to the story behind the map. It's place in time is quite important.

Examples could include.

2816 C.E.
1846
The 7th coming of Grendel

North on top..

Something else that may interest you. North on top is a mass production idea as the maps can be made that show separate areas that can be gathered together (more then one map) . Putting north on top makes for easy orientation and details can be carried to another map if need be. Older map makers would want to put as much detail (as possible) into the map space they have so orientation is up to the user in that case. If you have a complete location you wish to illustrate in a map then the orientation is somewhat secondary. This could also relate in part to the primary transportation system being illustrated as that would need the detail. If for instance your river is the reason behind the map then it perhaps would get the greatest attention to detail and therefore be oriented for that detail. So then north becomes a secondary point.

Things that decide the orientation.

- Primary transportation system
- Level of data on the map (the greater the amount of info the less northern orientation becomes)

So if interested it would be cool to see a map of the same space that was produced before the one above that would be black and white. Depending on how old the map would be that this one was produced from perhaps aged (Sepia - Curled corners - Knurled edges) that kind of thing.

Just a thought?