Yera_Novel Map

[XCali]

Tell you what. The easiest way to make judgements on what can and can't be done is to find out how big the map will be shown in the ebook, and make a reduced copy of your file to exactly that size, then upload that here and see if the rest of us can still read the labels

That is an awesome idea. Thanks Mouse!

[XCali]

For the heck of it, I thought I'd try my hand at a line-art only version of my map(I still have to do all the trees and stuff). So, let me know how it is. And if it would work in a novel. (Also versus it to the color version if you want.)

Yera_Novel_LineArt_Map_byOmri.jpeg

[Mouse]

I think the attachment went a bit wrong, XCali. You might have to upload it again

[XCali]

Hmmm, strange. I'll upload it again.
Tx for the heads up.

[Mouse]

That's pretty good for a first try

Perhaps it would help if I showed you a B/W commission piece that one of my Guild friends did recently. Although I have not as yet drawn a black and white map, I am aware of the theory through my art training, and there is very little difference between designing a good black and white line art poster, and a good black and white line art map...

This is a commissioned map - the Northwest Province of Omnourra by GLS. In it you can see that varying line thickness and simplification are two of the most important considerations to be made. The white space in the map is important because it separates the elements of the map - the mountains from the plains and the forest, and so on. The different line thicknesses help us to identify the elements for what they are, so that for instance the overall shape of a mountain is drawn in a thicker line than the details, and the lines drawn around the coast are thinner and less important than the coast itself, but give the impression of water.

The map is an abstract of reality. You would never see a black line running along a ridge in a photograph of a real mountain. Nor would you see the long thin lines trailing down its flanks on either side, and yet in the map... its a mountain - as clear as day. The same applies to the coast. There is never a thick black line on the beach where the water ends, and the waves beyond the water's edge are never fringed in black - and yet those lines on that map are clearly the coast and the water.

You would do a lot worse than examining this lovely example of Greg's, and trying to grasp the essence of just what it is that makes it a great B/W map.

...

The abstract nature of a piece of line art is a very difficult concept to explain, and because I'm not really all that good at explaining things, its probably not that easy to grasp just from reading my bad explanation. But I hope that it helps you to think about the way you draw your map in ink, since it's not all as straightforward as tracing the colour version

[XCali]

That's pretty good for a first try

Perhaps it would help if I showed you a B/W commission piece that one of my Guild friends did recently. Although I have not as yet drawn a black and white map, I am aware of the theory through my art training, and there is very little difference between designing a good black and white line art poster, and a good black and white line art map...

This is a commissioned map - the Northwest Province of Omnourra by GLS. In it you can see that varying line thickness and simplification are two of the most important considerations to be made. The white space in the map is important because it separates the elements of the map - the mountains from the plains and the forest, and so on. The different line thicknesses help us to identify the elements for what they are, so that for instance the overall shape of a mountain is drawn in a thicker line than the details, and the lines drawn around the coast are thinner and less important than the coast itself, but give the impression of water.

The map is an abstract of reality. You would never see a black line running along a ridge in a photograph of a real mountain. Nor would you see the long thin lines trailing down its flanks on either side, and yet in the map... its a mountain - as clear as day. The same applies to the coast. There is never a thick black line on the beach where the water ends, and the waves beyond the water's edge are never fringed in black - and yet those lines on that map are clearly the coast and the water.

You would do a lot worse than examining this lovely example of Greg's, and trying to grasp the essence of just what it is that makes it a great B/W map.

...

The abstract nature of a piece of line art is a very difficult concept to explain, and because I'm not really all that good at explaining things, its probably not that easy to grasp just from reading my bad explanation. But I hope that it helps you to think about the way you draw your map in ink, since it's not all as straightforward as tracing the colour version

Hmm, it is worth considering, I agree. Though, I do have time constraints with this, so I'm choosing my battles.

[XCali]

Okay, so I heard from the publisher. And so I have to work with 600px as my width on e-book version. (600 x 800 max) But the height comes in at 450? something, to keep the map proportioned.

Thus I opted to post 4 maps now. Small Color, Small Line-art then JUST to reference, the normal color and line-art version. (The line-art version still has a ways to go.)

I would really appreciate it, to get feedback on what would work best between the small versions. (I have seen it on my phone, the size it would be. But still, I would like more opinions before I decide.)



Color 600px wide (Probable ebook size)
E-book probable size_Color.jpeg

Line-Art 600px wide (Probable ebook size)
E-book_probable_size_LineArt.jpeg

-----
Normal map sizes.
Color
Yera's_Normal_Size_Color.jpeg

Line-art (WIP)
Lineart Yera with the bigtrees_byOmri.jpeg



EDIT: For now, I decided on a single name, just to get the proof of concept right
.

[Mouse]

In this one instance, XCali, I'd say the colour one, but that's only because you haven't had time to really develop the line work on the other one, making it difficult to tell what the lines mean exactly because they are all the same thickness, and more of a tracing of the colour version that a true line work map.

So for me it would be the colour one, but with more labels. A map doesn't really mean very much with only one label.

Try picking out just 5 or 6 of the places you specifically mention in your story. For example if you mention a particular place 3 x as often as most of the rest of them, add it to the map.

Also the bridge at Yera's Crossing could do with being a little lighter. Not much, but just so that you can see it against the river there. At the moment its a bit to similar in colour and tone.

All that is just my opinion though.

[XCali]

I'm leaning towards the color one more too, at the moment. I agree, that given time the line-art version can be quite good.

(I'll see if I can change the bridge a bit thanks.)

But, about the somewhat tracing, I didn't trace everything. I changed a lot of the mountains, I redid the trees from ground up, though I placed them where they were.
If I have to do the map in line art, from memory and what I wrote. Then it would be more in line with the line-art version and heavier sweeps to the bends on the path that lead from the North east corner all the way down to middle in between the cliffs, and more trees, and bridges between them, closer to Yera's Crossing. The rest would be mostly as seen. So, honestly, aside from those changes, I do not know how I would present this map in Line-art any differently.

The more labels thing... that is one I have to go think about more thoroughly. The novel is quite fast paced. And this is just one important region in the book. But from the moment they do enter this area, it's a thrill ride all the way to the city and then a pause there and then they go across the bridge to 'The Crossing'. But, I'll think on it. If the map was bigger in the ebook, I would have had it totally labelled.

[Mouse]

I'm finding it difficult to explain what I mean about line work or black and white ink maps.

This is one I did a few minutes ago. Its very crude and very simple. The basic differences are:

• There are far fewer lines per square inch than in your map. White space separates the elements and makes them easier to identify.
• The lines are different weights for different purposes - the thick one being the road, a thinner one for the coast etc.
• There is a lot of commonly accepted symbology going on. By that I mean the coast is echoed by fainter broken lines that grow outward from it, and the forests are little more than woolly blobs with sticks for trunks, yet both these things are instantly recognisable for what they are.

I've never done an ink map before, so this is my first one too, and I hope it helps to try and explain what I was trying to say about the development of your own ink map

Untitled.png

EDIT: btw - I'm not saying that you should draw like I do - just suggesting that you might like to consider leaving more space, giving more thought to line thickness, and using less detail in areas that are currently a bit crowded with detail - forest patches rather than single trees, for instance... etc