Something to kill an afternoon

[palehorse]

Hi all! I haven't been on in awhile, but I'll try to be better about coming over here more often in the future.

Just thought I'd stop in and post something I knocked out a couple of days ago. I had an afternoon free and I needed a break from all the other drawing I'd been doing, so I whipped up a little regional map. If I ever decide to use it for something, I'll probably do some color correction and add text labels in Photoshop, but at this time, for all intents and purposes, it's done.

The color was done with watercolor pencils and Niji waterbrushes. The outlines were done with a dip pen and a nice, free-flowing fountain pen ink that I really like. Unfortunately, the ink isn't waterproof, so I had to do all the colors first, then the outlines. If you pop over to my sketchblog - http://zombiesketch.blogspot.com - you can check out the work-in-progress pictures I took.

Unfortunately my scanner isn't the newest or bestest, so I'm afraid some of the subtlety of the watercolor is lost in the translation, but you get the general idea.

I guess it's not bad considering how out of practice I am with watercolor.

[StillCypher]

I'm really liking the colors and the natural texturing. There's something about the lines around the land and the hills/mountains, though, that makes me see a quilt...

Um, yes. I've done quilting.

And it's really good to see some of your stuff again!

[jfrazierjr]

Nice map! Butch, you deserve FAR more reputation than you currently have... here.. have +6.....

It's good to see you around, and we hope you'll pop in more often!

[Steel General]

If that's your 'out-of-practice' with water colors, can't wait to see some of the 'in-practice' stuff.

Very nice!!

Have some more 'rep' *bonk*

[palehorse]

Thanks all! I should point out that, in addition to leaving some room to Photoshop in some settlements and such later, it was intended to be an 8.5 x 5.5 half page map in it's finished form, so I didn't want to throw a whole lot of detail onto there.

I ended up adding the 'rippling waves' around the coastline to cover up how sloppy the shading there came out. There are a few places where I just couldn't cover it up, though, mostly in the long east-to-west and sw-to-ne channels; you can really tell where I couldn't manage a smooth transition between the colors. Ah, well, I'll try to do better next time.

[torstan]

Nice stuff: like it a lot. And a little more rep from me.

[vman3force]

its always nice to see maps made in traditional media; its my personal favorite as well.

[palehorse]

its always nice to see maps made in traditional media; its my personal favorite as well.

When I'm making a map for someone else's product, I always use Photoshop, because I never know when I might have to make changes to it or what form those changes might take. When I'm making one for one of my campaigns, I'll use PS as well because then I don't usually have a lot of time and I can really crank 'em out. lol

When I'm doing them purely for pleasure, though, or if I'm intending it more as an object d'art than as something I'll get any practical use for, I like to go old school and take my time with it! I do have a new dungeon project I'm working on, though, and I'm planning on experimenting a bit more on combining the two. I've done that with other things, but so far at least all my cartography has been one or the other!

[Turgenev]

I really like the texture of the map. Well done. It has a nice warm vibe to it. Have some well earned rep.

[palehorse]

I really like the texture of the map. Well done. It has a nice warm vibe to it. Have some well earned rep.

That cheap watercolor paper really does have a nice texture to it! And it takes a nib pen surprisingly well, much better than some of the low-grade bristol board I've used in the past. I'd love to try using some hot-pressed watercolor paper sometime, though, something with a bit less tooth to it.