World of Bellor & Oscyre

[Brian Chapman]

cartography__bellor_and_oscyre_by_echdesigns-d8i9vwn.jpg

This is my second official entry here on Cartographer's Guild. It's a commission done as a personal project, highlighting a world of two distinct cultures; Bellor and Oscyre.

This is the first map I feel like I officially brought all of my own personal mapping elements to their proper place to complete my "style". The biggest difference is the way I approached trees/forests. Allowing them to be more but more importantly darker than in previous works. The dark works well with the other design elements as it matches better the dark lines of the mountains and world icons.

Additionally this is the first map I've done that I experimented with colors on, using light color overlays to signify loosely terrain differences and give the world some vibrancy.

I built the compass into the border and hand-designed a few graphical elements to fill in empty space, such as the serpent on the left side of the map and a two-headed eagle design inspired by Germanic art that is used in both the backdrop of the compass but also in the back of the area of expansive ocean in the top right corner. I also hand-drew each of the icons for the cities and made the design decision to use distinctly different lettering styles between the two cultures to further focus on that duality concept.

Self-Criticism:

My only real issue with the finished project is that I was on a time table and I feel like I too heavily relied on some custom brushes I made to quickly fill in forests. Yoou can see the paterns of the brush in certain places more than others and it still bugs me to this day. I learned a lesson from this commission. I'd also probably go back and add some sort of terrain features to the northern landmass that has no defining features or labels.

[arsheesh]

I quite like the Red-brown hues in this map. The sea serpent along the border is quite nice as well. Land masses look good. I'm a little confused as to why you chose to use several different fonts for the same sized labels though; sort of detracts from the overall unity of the map. All in all a nice piece.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh