Xanturion Upper City

[TaylorH]

Hello, all. I thought I might start a new project and work on another version of a city/region from my Sarturus universe. I can't draw landscape features that well so I thought I could try to adopt and develop my own style, one based largely on neat symbols and distinctive forests.

The city of Xanturion lies within the vast Ertharu forest, and this is but the Upper City, a district graced by wealth and places of ritual and ceremony but also of power and security. Due to lore reasons and for the protagonists' penchant for natural, undisturbed wilderness, most of the city is not walled throughout and there is no single place which is the city proper, save for the very northern stronghold which is the abode of the protagonists. Most of the city's civilians reside within settlements in the large and less forested Lower City (relative to the northern Upper City) which sits below the extended arm of Taren Andulion, causing the divide.

This photo is just a sneak peak, as there is still quite a bit more to do and it's fairly detailed, or at least I hope it will be. My darn green pencil wore out and my sharpeners fail me, so I'll have to wait to order a new set for the exact same colour! The terrors of working in traditional means...

P.s. the colours are much greener/lighter and sharper than the photo makes it appear.


sfsf.png
From Sarithus' Thyandul map.

IMG_0159.JPG
I know it's not much yet.

[Chashio]

Yeah, it's not much (I wish I could see it bigger, and more of it) but it all looks great so far. Keep it up! And I actually quite like the cooler tones in the colored version and may have to try something like it in the future. I'm sure it looks excellent in lighter green, too. Hopefully we'll get to see that at some point if possible. The uncolored map is also great - I love your drawing style.

[TaylorH]

Here is some more and what I have so far. It's a shame that my scanner is rubbish and my camera, despite being quite good, just can't seem to capture the lighter green crisp lines as they are in real life.

Upper City 2.jpg

[Chashio]

Oh, I see... it looked black in the first picture. Is it more like this, then?
Zanturion color value adjust.jpg

All of those wonderful little illustrations make me want to read a story from the setting.

[TaylorH]

Oh, I see... it looked black in the first picture. Is it more like this, then?
Zanturion color value adjust.jpg

All of those wonderful little illustrations make me want to read a story from the setting.

Yes, it pretty much looks like that on paper. I can't seem to get either my camera or scanner to produce such results, despite changing lots of colour settings. Oh well.

Thanks.

[Chashio]

I've found that, almost always, photos and scans need further adjustment with some kind of image editing software. But a good idea for photographing artwork is to take the picture in as natural lighting as possible... and then fiddle with camera settings as needed. It looks like you did that with the second picture, but perhaps on a dark, cloudy day. You might try adding a warmish-toned light/lamp to whatever you did for that one to add some extra brightness and balance the colors off of blue a bit.