Crown Colonies of the Pretannic Empire (hand-drawn 16th century style)

[Gamerprinter]

I decided to create a map that emulates a 17th century style with mostly hand-drawn elements (forest and swamp foilage, village, town, fort symbols, hills, and mountains, as well as the cartouche) and vector created elements inspired by the British colonies in America, but completely ficticious. There are nods to Pre-Roman British, Roman British, early Irish-Scot history, and Shakespeare throughout the place names. These are the American colonies that never were. Enjoy!

Hand-drawn elements include: symbols for hills, mountains, villages, towns, and forts. The forest and swamp foilage or hand-drawn image fills for vector shapes. The cartouche is hand-drawn based on a historic example. Everything else drawn with a mouse or typed in vector using Xara Designer Pro 9. I started this on Friday, so a 3 day project.

GP

crown-colonies-final.jpg

[Wingshaw]

Very nice map, with some great aspects. The Tuskaheny Mountains and title cartouche are particular highlights.

[Gamerprinter]

Oh, and regarding the compass rose, I used abbreviated Latin for the Cardinal directions: north - Borealis (Bor), west - Occidentalis (Occ), south - Australis (Aus), and east - Orientalis (Ori), and combined it with rhumb lines for something different. I think it worked.

[Jalyha]

I love that little touch... adds a lot of character to the map!!

And it really turned out great ^.^

[Gamerprinter]

I decided to tweak the rivers so they don't overlap the border, nor go into the sea - they stop in the right place. Also I noticed an error on one of the directions on the compass rose, being Latin instead of normal, I had something like a SWS, that should have been a SSW (A.A.O.) - got that straightened out. So the map has some corrections and improvements.

GP

crown-colonies-final-fixed.jpg

[Scoopz]

I like Radclifton, is it in the new world county of hogwartson?

[Gamerprinter]

I've got a friend, whose last name is Radcliff, and though he never cared in the past, suddenly he's been nosing into his heritage. Radcliffe was the first governor of Jamestown. Lots of his ancestors in England were from the north and supported the Scottish bid for the throne and were Catholics, and many lost their heads in the tower. Anyway, he laid much of his ancestry onto me, and I got inspired to include some of that in this map. Radclifton kind of representing an alternate Jamestown. And New Strathclyde both implies the old Scot-Irish Kingdom and Virginia.

Also look west into the Gap, on the border between New Strathclyde and Bethland, you see Fort Irwin and Fort MacBeth. In Shakespeare's MacBeth, King Malcolm Irwin is the King of Scotland (an ancestor of mine), but is poisoned by MacBeth (MacBeth actually killed him in an ambush following a battle Irwin won). So there is a clan feud/inter-colonial skirmish which by its location hints of Hatfields and McCoys... so there's a lot going on in this map, if you know the details.

[SJS]

I like anything with a firth in it.

Really nice style and colors and love the compass with alternative directional names. Cool.

[Ilanthar]

I like your map and its originality. Won't repeat what others have already said - just adding that I really like your swamps and towns icons.

Just my two cents remarks : I think your icons are better without the brown color (including the small settlements) & your forests are good but a bit "squared" on their borders sometimes.