Hi guys,

First, thank you very much for taking the time to look at my thread here.

I have decided that my computer use choice of network engineer was far superior to the ideal of being a graphic artist. I have lurked here for around a month off and on, and despite putting 20-25 hours into trying to make a map that I am happy with, I cannot make it happen.

I am presently in the process of designing a new world for running a long term story telling scenario with my friends. In this regard, much of the world is uncharted by the PCs or the humans that they are staying with, but I would like to have a nice looking “gods eye view” of the world.

Commission:

I was brought up with the idea that nothing in life worth having is free. I am putting serious thought into some world building here, and would like to have this project taken up by someone who is going to be doing map making for a while. I will need to add cities, and places to the map as time goes along, and as I do this, I would like to have the original of the map updated. For these reasons listed, I am willing to look at a commission for this job, if can come to terms between us. I'd like to discuss this further before moving onward (I am a single father who likes to play with his buddies), but I am also willing to put money down to have something worth having, and for someone to be around to help update the map(s).

Time Constraints:

I have no major time issues, as we're only meeting for sessions once a week and the PCs won't be exploring the major parts of the world until the summer at least, but I would like to be prepared.

Description:

I have only a small portion of the world mapped out, but it's rather poor. We're on a peninsula of the largest continent of the world, which is in the eastern hemisphere.

Astoria (The name of the world), is a small earth type planet. Circumference is 16,000 miles The world is made up of three continents. - Should be roughly 65% water. There are two continents in the western hemisphere with a large ocean between them, and then the large Continent in the eastern hemisphere. There is a large, ob-longed ring of islands in the middle, which probably encompass the surface area of a small continent, but they're quite spread out. (Chain of Volcanic Islands surrounding a small tectonic plate near the middle of the map, mostly dorment. Lots of sea-life surrounding these areas.) The only noticable feature that I would like to have is a small circular cut out/ring of islands off the southern portion of the large continent. All climates should be represented. (Temperate Forest, Tropical Forest, Plains, Deserts, Mountains, Hills, Arctic, etc.)

Between 8 and 100 miles below the surface, there is a large series of caverns and tunnels that encompasses the greater area of the area below the world's surface. These caves range in size from around 100miles across down to areas that are only 5-6 miles across, most of them are linked together to for a massive collection of tunnels. One of the larger pockets is directly below where my PCs are entering into the campaign, and this is where their first few levels will take place.

The moon above the planet is inhabitable, and a bit unique. It's 1/8th the size of the planet (2,000 miles around), and is habitable on both the inner and outter surfaces of the crust. The crust is mostly solid, with a few large rifts that divide it into quadrents. The surface is a lush forest, and the interior is a Mushroom and Crystal Forest. (There is a magical crystal in the middle of the moon that holds it all together, not sure what purpose it serves, but it's there and I liked the idea!)

I very much like the style this map was done in, and if done all in a similar style to this, that would be awesome:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ma...ppi_cv2891.jpg

But I am also open to suggestions, or examples of other work.

Quality & Size:

Looking for a semi-professional map that would look good at poster size for the original. I will be putting at least one of these maps on the wall for continuing idea generation.

In the long term, I would like to see a large map of each area I've described, as this will be a long term world build for me.

For the Planet and Continents, I would like both a atlas style map, showing the different land masses and geographical features, as well as a political style map that shows cities, roads, borders, etc. Due to the nature, the map of the cavernous system should probably be done around the same time frame to make things line up correctly.

100miles/inch puts us at 16” across, and that's a bit small. I'd like to go maybe 50miles/inch, or 25 depending on what you're comfortable with. Large images are harder to move around, I know, but I am going to have a poster printed and laminated of each map, so I would like it to be nice.


Copyright:

I will be putting this onto the wiki for my world, which will be up as soon as work gets our new server in place. In case anything happens, I would like to retain the copyright for the picture should any of these things ever by publicized (long shot), but have no issue with the artist keeping the work in his portfolio for his own uses.


Long term:

I like playing Dungeons and Dragons, and I am regularly looking for players to play a game that may go for 8-10 sessions over the course of a few months. I would be more than willing to make room for the willing cartographer in one of my campaigns. I am still a novice DM, so I don't always get things perfect, but I try!!

Please let me know if you have any questions.

I cannot PM on here, so the best contact place is: paul.benner[==at==]gmail.com - Or I will check this thread back quite often.

Best regards,

Paul