The Land - Child of Dragons (commission)

[Meshon]

Hiya, just working on a map for Child of Dragons by Regine Haensel, the sequel to Queen of Fire. I got a great photo of a map sketched out on a whiteboard to work from and so far it's mostly been sketches to make sure I'm getting things in the right place. I figured I'd share those ugly first steps with you! And then nicer later steps I hope…

I'm planning to do an ink and paper version of this but I want to get it solid with the author before I switch to a much less forgiving medium.

The-Land.jpg

And with a bit of progress made, making sure I am matching up the terrain with what happens in the novel.
The-Land-biomes.jpg

Full disclosure: the author is my mom and I did the book design for the first novel in the series, super excited to do the map and layout for this one!

cheers,
Meshon

Edit: I just realized, this may be my very first region map posted on the Guild!

Edit: Nope, I'm wrong. Sigh. My memory must be going

[Abu Lafia]

Hi Meshon, excited to see a new wip from you, even more so the prospect of another ink and paper map! Seems to be a great project and the first steps are far from ugly in my view. The mountains' shading looks "sehr schön" and i'm really curious to see how you'll tackle the depiction of the different sorts of territory. Looking forward to see it unfold.

[Meshon]

Here's my sketchbook, preliminary work on the ink version. The actual map (rather small I guess) is on the recto, while the verso contains sketches that are me trying things out and experimenting. I like seeing other people's notes and bits and pieces, so maybe someone else feels the same. If not, just ignore the whole left side

…and the placemats…

TheLandSketching.jpg

cheers,
Meshon

Edit: Thanks Abu!

[ChickPea]

Interesting start and looking forward to seeing how this develops. It's great that you've read the book and can bring that knowledge to the mapmaking process. And yay for having an author in the family! I'll need to have a nosey at the first book in the series.

I do like that little corner element. It's very well drawn (I'd be heading straight to a vector stock site for something like that!!) Looking forward to your next update.

[Meshon]

Feeling the forest frustration setting in… still a few more things to try. I guess part of dealing with forests is just deciding what to do and then drawing all the darn trees.

The-Land-forest-woes.jpg

cheers,
Meshon

[ThomasR]

Feeling the forest frustration setting in… still a few more things to try. I guess part of dealing with forests is just deciding what to do and then drawing all the darn trees.

The-Land-forest-woes.jpg

cheers,
Meshon

Yup, when your mind is set on the style, you just gotta do it, tree after tree.

I concur with Diamond about the forest patch.

[Meshon]

Yup, when your mind is set on the style, you just gotta do it, tree after tree.

I concur with Diamond about the forest patch.

That's good to hear, what I've decided to go with is probably most similar to that section. Problem with forests it seems, is that you don't know if it works 'til you're done!

Thanks for the feedback 😊

Cheers,
Meshon

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

[Diamond]

TProblem with forests it seems, is that you don't know if it works 'til you're done!

^^ This.

It's so damn frustrating when you think you've got a good style, you do a fairly big chunk, then realize it looks like crap and have to start over.

[Garth Brown]

I look forward to seeing the final results and trying those trees myself.

[Diamond]

For what it's worth, I like the forest section in that wedge of land between the rivers/lakes. I may try something like that myself...