Crossroads Region Map, Post-Apocalyptic hand sculpted coastal zone

[Mutant Lord]

Oh man I've been waiting to share this map here for years! It took three years to get the gazetteer book out, and we just released it today so I can finally show this.



It was hand sculpted and hand painted. I used foam core board and projected the drawing onto it, then cut into the board for the canyon and a few craters, and then roughed up the non-water areas so the modelling compound would stick to the board. I used crayola Model Magic as the modeling medium as it was non-toxic, air dried in hours, and took acrylic paint either as painted or hand mixed like clay. The ruins were made from snapped off lengths of balsa wood, then hand painted. The Tainted Sea area is just the foam board itself, painted with two coats of a matte blue (needs to be matte or it will shine during the photoshoot).

I highly recommend this method, its what I used for Fantasy Flight Games Midnight map and Game of Thrones maps, along with many other maps that came out years ago when I was freelancing. Now of course I publish The Mutant Epoch RPG

Oh, the type was done in Photoshop, the original sculpture is about 30 x 30 inches and professionally photographed.
I welcome any questions about this project and will share some of the 448 page book's interior maps shortly.
Regards
WM

[Falconius]

Give us a detail shot of it too please. This thing is cool. I honestly never thought of making a map in such a manner.

[Mutant Lord]

Hi Falconius,

Sure, I made a bunch of 10 x 10 jpegs showing details of the sculpted and painted map without text. Glad you think its cool. I used my smallest miniature figure painting brushes for much of it. To make textures I used old bristle brushes, sponges, toothpicks, and whatever else I could find. Took forever but was such a blast to work on.
Here are the detail images:















So, the signature below is old. I've tried to update it and it so far hasn't taken. My Signature should say: William McAusland Creative Director Outland Arts.com The Mutant Epoch Tabletop Role-Playing Game Homepage and my occupation would be Author-Illustrator-Publisher

[Ilanthar]

No doubt, that's a post-apocalyptic style !

It looks cool and very complex. Your artistic method seems time-eater for me, but when we're pleased with the result, this becomes secondary.

[Mutant Lord]

Hi Ilanthar,

Thanks for commenting. Yes, it was a time eater, but looking back, I did much of this upstairs in the Kitchen as I had two baby girls in diapers to look after and between feedings, while my wife was at work, I'd pick away at this map and make notes on the areas of interest that are now contained in the book. The Regions east, west, north and north east are also mapped out, but only the shattered region to the east is sculpted and ready for the text. It will be awhile before we tackle another gazetteer, however, as they are intense and the factions intertwined.

Still, the medium I used, Crayola Model Magic, is fantastic stuff and I'm buying a big tub of it for each of my young nephews. Highly recommend it for kids of all ages, and grown ups who can use it to base their warhammer figs!

Will

[Falconius]

This is so great I love it. To make a sculpture appear so absolutely pictorial is amazing. I personally hate painting of any sort so the idea that you could mix these two skills with such effectiveness is startling to me.

I'm a sculptor myself so this really appeals to me on an instinctual level. I think I'm going to adopt you method for the December challenge map even though it will assure that I won't complete it on time.

[Havercakes24]

Dude... this map is prime, nice job!

[RjBeals]

oh man - that's INSANE! Love it! I would love to see some in-progress photo's of this thing sitting on your kitchen table.

[ShooterSharkey]

Amazing! As a pen and pencil guy, my hats off to this sculptured approach.

[DarrelMorris]

That is amazing. I'm sure it was time consuming, but the end result was well worth it.