Tarvall's Land (an experiment with fountain pen and watercolor)

[Turnpikelad]

So I've been mocking up this circa-17th century fantasy world for a campaign I want to run in the indefinite future. The players will be on a mission to explore, map and investigate a rocky, windy continent to the far north, which as far as the Thurian (= latitude-flipped European) nations know is poor and uninhabited. Basically, it's Chilean Patagonia - an empty, forested land, beaten by wind, populated with strange almost-familiar plants and animals. There is one colony in the region, and it's underfunded and old, a fifty-year-old outpost of an aging imperial power, founded in the unfulfilled hope of finding mineral riches. There have only been a couple naval expeditions to the further shores of the continent. The players are working off of a copy of the maps made by those first explorers.

I'm trying to make that map myself by hand. I started with a pencil sketch of the area. This is the "master sketch" that includes all the information about the continent, not just the features visible from the sea; it's for my use as I plan the campaign.

tarvall0.jpg

Then I attempted to make a rendition entirely using watercolors. That didn't work out too well...

tarvall1.jpg

So I went and bought a fountain pen, some ink, and a set of nibs, and made a hybrid watercolor-and-ink map. I'm almost done with it, just need to put in the legend and compass rose, and maybe one of those dudes blowing wind and a boat or something.

tarvall2.jpg

I'm not too satisfied with the way some of it turned out - the pen was being fussy especially for the mountains, and I don't like the choice I made for some of the lettering, so I'm probably going to make a fourth final version. But it's no problem, I've been having a great time with this.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome.