Hello!

[Sylva Knight]

Hi everyone! Arsheesh directed me to this site via DeviantART and I'm excited about what I see! I've been drawing maps for some time, but only recently begun producing works of any significant size and quality. I draw my maps by hand and then add hints of color in photoshop. My best one to date would be The Torren Empire, which I did for a friend who's writing a novel.

I'm looking forward to connecting with other artists and worldbuilders!

[Vellum]

Nice map Sylva, look forward to some more work from you! Welcome aboard.

[kestrelgrey]

Beautiful map! Very impressive; those trees must have taken quite some time. Welcome to the guild!

[jbgibson]

Verrrry nice intro, Sylvia - I deem anyone willing to contribute from the git-go repworthy, but then you also posted a really *good* map. In future if you can actually upload maps, they'll be available no matter what happens to your hosting in the future. Not like the CG site is guaranteed to be eternal, but it's got the force of a horde of mappers behind it, even though the admin is by one or a few. I figure this site will outlast my meager site, f'rinstance :-).

New rule (if I were King... ) : everybody who posts a map made for somebody's novel or story or screenplay has to post an announcement of the book (etc) once it gets published! I know some do, and I know some works never get published, but the ratio of maps-for-books to book announcements seems to be 50-1 or 100-1 .

Can you tell us some about how you created the Torren Empire map? After-the-fact work-in-progress info, if you will.

[Lukc]

A beautiful entree! A very lovely map, indeed!

[Sylva Knight]

Thanks everyone. And I will certainly post an announcement if his novel gets published! The more word is spread the better.

I started work on that particular map after my friend saw my Westward Isle Map. I often draw maps and then come up with the stories and cultures after the fact, and he wanted to do something like that for a novel he was starting. So we worked very closely on the development of the map, with me sending him frequent WIP shots. When I started all he really had in mind was that the climate would be somewhat like England's, but more varying, and the basic bones of a story in which the hero dies at the very beginning and the bad guys have won. The Weeping was the forest that sprung up at the hero's death, so that and couple of village names were all we had.

After that I just went wild and put in any interesting spots I could think of. About half of the names on the map are his and half are mine, and lots of them reference the pantheon of gods that is integral to the story. The runes set in the map are each representative of one of those gods. I did all of the work in pencil by hand, and yes, those trees do take forever, but I just wasn't happy with the way any other trees looked. Once the map was completely finished I had it scanned and then used photoshop to yellow it and give it hints of color. Basically all that consists of is using a soft airbrush with very low opacity to let the pencil show through. If the map calls for it (and this one did) I darken the pencil lines a bit before adding the color. And that's it! This is the largest map I've done so far at 19" x 24".

[Korash]

Yuppers...def rep-worthy-map-in-the-first-post thingy

Glad you decided to join up.

Welcome to the Guild, The Mappiest Place on the Web

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Sylva Knight! I'm glad you decided to show off your lovely work here where it would be well appreciated. Have a bit of rep from me as well.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Ryuk003]

Welcome aboard, friend!