December Entry: Bloodwinter Raids Map

[Sapiento]

At least I came up with an idea.
The map shows the annual bloodwinter raids of the Orc to honour the god of ice and snow, Krulbag. The Orcs capture the towns (if they are not defeated), kill ritually the inhabitants and create pyramids of the skulls which they shower with cold water until they have an object of skulls covered by ice. This totem stands until the sun of spring melts the water.

The dates of the raids are - of course - written with blood!

Scary and disgusting, but nobody says that Orcs are nice.

The map is mainly created with Ramah's brushes, I thought it was a good opportunity to test them.

### Latest WIP ###

[Gamerprinter]

Looks like good use of Ramah's brushes.

Only critique, since this is supposed to be a Winter Map, the background of white depicts this, but the trees look too full of leaves to serve a winter map well. Still good job. Makes for a busy map.

The scrawly red marks of the Orcs actions is difficult to read properly, as well.

GP

[Sapiento]

Ok, I removed the transparency of the bloody marks.

If anyone still thinks the text (dates of successful and unsuccessful raids) is ugly, well, it's my own handwriting (you can imagine how my teachers and professors at school and university had received their regular headaches )

### Latest WIP ###

[Ascension]

Pretty cool. The blood might need to be less transparent as I can't really read it...but maybe my eyes are finally going.

[Sapiento]

Hadn't thought about the trees. Either I change the background or the trees. Difficult to decide, because the map is human-made but used by Orks for their planning. So, would humans make a map depicting their land in winter, during the dark and cold time instead of green and fertile summer?

Concerning the Orc marks - I first tried to make it more clean, but than I thought an Orc with his clumsy hand can not write very clean. Maybe I have to change this

[Gamerprinter]

Well, by the challenge rules making a Winter Map is part of the challenge - its the primary "Christmas-sy" portion of the Challenge. So the map is supposed to depict winter.

Q: Would humans make a winter map?

A: Most of us are human, and we can make winter maps... while not specifically traditional focusing on winter as a map, how traditional would a map for Orcs ever be?

Looking forward to how you'll tweak the map to fix the small issues mentioned...

GP

[Sapiento]

Well, by the challenge rules making a Winter Map is part of the challenge - its the primary "Christmas-sy" portion of the Challenge. So the map is supposed to depict winter.

Q: Would humans make a winter map?

A: Most of us are human, and we can make winter maps... while not specifically traditional focusing on winter as a map, how traditional would a map for Orcs ever be?

Looking forward to how you'll tweak the map to fix the small issues mentioned...

GP

Well, I think the only logical solution is to change the trees.

[Sapiento]

Trees replaced with leafless ones.

To place it in line with the story: the Orcs forced a human mapmaker to draw the map and as payment his head was placed on top of the pyramid (what a nasty method to pay!).

### Latest WIP ###

[Gamerprinter]

Well that was fast! Good job!

It also makes the map easier to read.

GP

[Steel General]

Neat idea Sapiento!

I wonder if maybe changing the color of the blood to something more reddish-brown (as though it had dried a bit), would help with the readability?