I finally have a little free time on my hands and definitely want to try to get something done for this challenge. One of my favourite river stories is Apocalypse Now (and, by extension, Conrad's Heart of Darkness) so I decided to try an homage with yet another different setting, this time a fantasy world. I'm also writing a more detailed background but I think I have all the elements worked out now. I paused here because of perspective. Am I making a top-down map, or a simplified perspective map? One of the problems with adding some perspective is that I will need to draw the river even more out of scale, otherwise I think it will disappear. Also I'm not keen on drawing a whole bunch of tree trunks, since the terrain is pretty much dense jungle. And of course my icons are currently flat.

I've been looking at a bunch of 14th-15th century maps to get ideas and I think I'm going to end up spending a lot more time on the border than on the actual topography! I'm looking forward to doing all the little illustrations; I know I don't have the skill yet to make them exactly as I imagine, so it will be good practice in letting go of perfectionism and being satisfied with "good enough."

Hopefully I'll figure out a way to make better pictures going forward. I just used my phone for this one but I think I can dig up a tripod and a better camera. It will also help the visibility once I dare to start in with a pen…

### LATEST WIP ###
Mengkong_River.jpg

Thoughts on the perspective problems? Stern admonishments? All will be appreciated! And I apologize again for the image quality, I'll find something better for the next update. I just wanted to make sure I got in on this before it's too late!

cheers,
Meshon