The Lands of Astfindale (A Map for a Friend)
Started working on this a few days ago after a friend of mine wanted a map done for an upcoming RPG campaign. He sent me a quick paint doc outlining what he had in mind and I ran with it.
Here's the quick mockup he did: uf1wjYQ.jpg
Here is the finished (I think) product: Rl5H7Gn.jpg
Overall I'm relatively pleased. I tried to get a less cartoony map but not sure if I managed. I think my lettering is the biggest culprit for the cartoony look, but I can live with it for now. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Hope you all enjoy!
Fantastic! Really great mountains, very nice squiggly rivers. The coastline is just a little confusing, in my opinion – you often have detailed forests coming close to the shore, then the shoreline itself, and then an extra line around it, and by themselves, all those elements are very nicely made, but in a strictly black/white map, it becomes too many lines to be easy to read, for me. That's the only nitpick from me though. Have some rep
Thanks very much. I need to color this eventually, but don't really have the tools/programs to do it the way I want to.
Amazing pencil work! I love your mountains and have saved your map in my inspiration file. For lettering, try making an italic nib out of your pencil: Use a knife to make the nib quite long and then some fine grade sandpaper or an emery board to work the nib into a screwdriver head shape. Have it at a 45 degree angle to the page so if you draw diagonally up to down and right to left you get the thinnest line and the opposite for the thickest line.
No harm in using a ruler to draw faint guidelines for the text as well.
Beautiful, but I think I like the original sketch better.. just kidding. I love this, except I think it might be better with out the extra line around the coast, just makes it a bit harder to read. Other than that, amazing.
Nice map
I'm with the fellas r.e. the confusing shoreline, but other than that: awesome. Color me impressed.
How would you guys suggest fixing it at this point?
Well that's the lovely thing about traditional drawing/painting – you can't. Gather up the feedback and compile it in memory, and start something new. If I worked purely digitally, I'd probably never get anything done, I'd still be tweaking the very first map I made. Working traditionally keeps me creative, the permanent nature of the media is one of its strengths
Gorgeous work, Redleg. The forests are outstanding.
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams"
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