Jan / Feb 2016 Lite Challenge: Glasgow Necropolis

[ChickPea]

Since I have no clue about dungeon maps or the like, I thought I'd try to make a map of a real world place, so I'm doing Glasgow's Necropolis, a famous old cemetery in the city full of amazing tombstones.

I've created the basic layout with a couple of blank areas where I'm hoping to insert illustrations of a couple of the monuments. I took the time to plan a little, instead of my usual 'throw it at the wall and see what sticks' approach, so I hope the layout feels balanced. (My biggest empty box doesn't line up right now because there ended up being more labels than I thought, but obviously I'll fix that.)

I'd ideally like to do a bit more with the cemetery itself but I'm not sure if it might spoil the simplistic look of the 'informational' style of map. I suppose a couple of trees wouldn't hurt. (I've been snooping on Snodsy's current Nature Centre WIP for ideas!) After I get the monuments done, I'll have a poke around and see what works.

My original thought was to create the monuments in Sketchup but, for various reasons(!) I think I'll stick with Inkscape and Gimp for now and see how it goes.

### Latest WIP ###

necropolis1.jpg

[Wolram]

There are some really cool names on those monuments! Looking good.

[Diamond]

Chickpea, you always have such interesting ideas! This one's no exception.

[Bogie]

Good start!

[Ilanthar]

Fun, I've visited this necropolis. I have to say I've a better memory of the university though...

[ChickPea]

I'm a bit behind with this, but here's an update for now. No part is finished yet. I still need to do some tidying up and shading with the illustrations, and I want to get those done soon.

I drew in a few trees just to see what they looked like, but I feel what I have doesn't really work with the style of the rest of the map. Something about my hand-drawn squiggles doesn't seem to fit. Not sure what's best to do. Might make a few tree shapes in Inkscape and see how they look dotted around. Also need to try a few things with the gravestones. There's no way I'm doing a realistic representation (since there's 3,500 of them!) but I thought a few rows of rectangles could represent some graves, with the odd larger building here and there. The satellite image on Google Maps is fairly decent so I can use that as a guide.

### Latest WIP ###

necropolis2.jpg

[J.Edward]

I think your trees are an okay fit, though some vector ones might be a better fit.
The whole thing is looking quite fabulous. Really nice subdued color scheme and nice overall layout.

[Bogie]

Yeah, I think the trees look fine also.

[ChickPea]

Thanks, guys! Think I'm going to redo the trees anyway. Inkscape's clone tool is perfect for something like this, as I can bang out a large number of trees with slight variations without too much hassle (and probably nicer than my hand-drawing efforts!!)

Will post again at the weekend.

[- Max -]

That looks great so far!