Palace of the Marsh King

[RedKettle]

This map was developed and submitted as a monthly challenge and explored the appearance and disappearance of a palace in the marshes of a Venice-like fantasy lagoon. The only real change I have made since the competition is which fonts are shown. I am showing it here with Aquiline Two and FFF Tusj (free fonts found at Font Squirrel). Consistent with almost every map I do, the changes I would like to make would result in an entirely new and different map, so I will call this iteration complete.

The map takes place in a fantasy setting. The idea behind the map is that there are changes in the area over time, some of them mysterious. The map is being drawn by a historian recording the 9 Greatest Mysteries (looking back on my thread I guess I never mentioned this part), and each Mystery got its own set of maps/illustrations. I had the idea at the time that this was one of the 'draft' mysteries drawn but not included in the set (Mystery 10 of 9, just to keep things even more oddly mysterious), and although I incorporated elements of this, like the half-colored area and drafting lines, I did not follow through with enough border/titleblock detail to make this clear in the final iteration. In addition, the historian/cartographer presents information from four different times, giving us partial (mysterious?) views of the region's developmental process as well as hints about the Palace itself. The oldest time is in the text, where the lagoon is described before the arrival of the Palace. Next is the elevation/facade, showing the Palace in its full splendor, but only from single vantage. After that is the lagoon map, which shows the impact of the Palace on the development of the region. It is missing its label, which should read roughly as 'Lagoon at the time of the Disappearance'. Finally the floor plans (also missing a label) show what bits and pieces of the Palace have endured the 300 years between the Disappearance and the publishing of the 9 Greatest Mysteries.

As mentioned in the thread, lots of lessons learned, and a fun challenge to participate in!

http://www.cartographersguild.com/ma...arsh-king.html

marshpal-1-5d-11x17 (3)-2k copy2.jpg

[Bogie]

Nice Work, looks like an architect drew it.

[RedKettle]

Thanks! Yeah, I was aiming for a not quite clean draft-y feel. Some of the extra lines started getting a little confusing and cluttered at the end though.