The Continent of Krig – commission

[Lingon]

A.Woods, thanks a lot!

Rdanhenry, thanks for the feedback, but I have to disagree. I tried many, many fonts, and in the end settled for this modern roman style because it just looked best to my eye. The client liked it too, and I'm still happy with the choice, and believe me, I'm rarely happy with my pictures for very long I'm not sure why I like this font/map style combo so much, because you are of course right that the text looks very digital on the hand painted landscape, but I think it works because of that contrast. Too much coherency and everything just turns into a porridge of perfectness – there has to be some dissonance for me to appreciate a picture

Edit: wait, that came out wrong… I didn't try to say that my maps would be perfect, I know they are far from it, I meant it in general, about all art and illustrations. And I meant perfectness in a negative sense

[Eilathen]

A very beautiful piece! I love your handdrawn style a lot. The mountains are superb.
The forest (or whatever that is) color is way out there

Have some Rep.!

[Lingon]

Thanks Eilathen! Yeah, purple forests where fun to paint Can't take credit for the idea though, it's part of the client's setting. Thanks for the rep!

[jbgibson]

Delightful map.
Delightful phrase (porridge of perfectness).

Would you be willing to link to something about the author? Many thousands of milliseconds of arduous research have failed to turn up a match....

[Lingon]

Haha, thank you! Words are fun

I don't think he has published anything yet actually. My search didn't turn up anything either… I could ask him if he's got a website if you are interested, or if I can share anything about the book that this map was for? Yeah, I think I'll do that, I want to know when it's coming out anyway

[Llannagh]

Another great piece of art!

I agree with you where the fonts are concerned. The digital sharpness of the fonts makes them readable, which would be something the author would want, I guess.
I'm amazed by how you pull off the forests! And I'm not talking about the colors (though those are refreshingly unusal, props to the author ), but the shape. I tried for hours to paint stretches of woodland like that, but was never satisfied. I guess it works here because of they're darker around the edges.

Also, a thing I admire about a few of your maps is that you're not afraid of leaving some areas blank. That's something I have to work on. I always have the urge to fill in every bit of blank space!

[Lingon]

Thanks Llannagh!
I don't know what to say about the forests actually, I guess I've just practiced them a bit The medium probably adds its own touch too, watercolors do a lot of the work themselves, haha.
Interesting thing you said about the empty space, I haven't thought of it but I can sort of see it now, I do leave large areas empty sometimes. Thanks, glad you like it

[Lingon]

Here's for Jbgibson, and anyone else who's interested!

At the moment there is no site and I am still creating back lore but I can give you synopsis.

Through the Vayn and into the Dour Demesne there was a place...a land...an island. It was called Krig.

The Lyssiran and Quellar have been fighting a constant war (like a series of battles between a gangs; never really all out). This war is called the Evar War. The only time these two races were not fighting were during the six days of The Dimming every 456 days cycles.

Something during the war between the Lyssiran and Quellar, a group of secret group omni-thau using Lyssiran (Dark Lyssiran) used a devastating spell from the book called Verses Vice on the Quellar water supply (Spells that were discovered but forbidden to be used).

Because the Quellar males were usually warring or hunting, the women and children were mainly affected by it. This eventually halted the Evar War but had many negatives effects on the Quellar as well as environment e.g. Quellar women would die through child birth, the land around Quell was poisoned killing almost all animals and plant life etc. The Quellar had no idea what was going on; but the Lyssiran Hygers (Leaders of Lyssiran) soon discovered the ominous truth. Though they never told the Quellar what had happened, they started working torwards a treaty to help the Quellar survive extinction; invited diplomats, traded food for safe passage through XesXes etc.

With treaty between the Lyssiran and Quellar active, this allowed the once two warring races to get somewhat of a better understanding of each other; even fall in love. This however was strictly forbidden and punishment for this would be swift.

Eventually, the races do mix and there is now a new race: The New Born. This race and those who wished to have children with Quellar live only within the Quellar domicile Grunstone as the Lyssiran and other Quellar domicles refused to accept them. New Born are also only female so the race can not sustain itself.

Ok now so I hope that gave you a general idea of the history... so

The main story focuses on Racanz, a New Born born to an ex-Lyssiran Hyger and The Caller, Edorotaz. She finds herself not being accepted by other New Born as well as Quellar. The story goes through how she grows up, her close relationship to her father, her falling in love with (not going to spoil), her sisters strong dislike for her and how she becomes one of the strongest warriors and hunters within the Quellar menage though.

The story also focuses on the spire weapon known as Alkmane, the events of charging it during The Dimming, traditions of both cultures etc.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So......Excuse the grammar, I am relying on Coca-Cola to stay away!

I hope that gave you a general idea of what I am writing! Obviously not perfect but it's hard for me to explain without ruining it.

This is a world I am creating also so books after this will usually have some sort of relation to this first one!

– Aaron Henderson

He also said that he doesn't have a release date yet.

[foremost]

Here's my take on the font:

I think the font does work well with the map,
but doesn't have perfect placement. The labels
over the sea (Dox Mor) are excellent, and I
think the font works there because of the "flat"
background; there's nothing going on behind it.
The font above the painted landscape looks
oddly placed (in my humble opinion) and might
obscure the painted details we all want to see.
If I were you, I'd have kept the lines of text
straight, and positioned it off to the side a bit,
where there's less detail.

Incredible painting skills, by the way. I always
like your pieces.

[Lingon]

Thanks, Foremost! I think you're right, the text does obscure a little, but I also think it could be confusing to place it off to the side like a city label, since most of the names in this map are not descriptive, so you wouldn't be able to know if a label was referring to the mountain range, the forest, the river, etc. That's what I was worried about, anyway. But thank you for the feedback, I will keep it in mind!