Ostwyc, the Lion City

[Diamond]

But still, it's a labour of love I guess. Because no matter how long it takes, I actually enjoy shaping and kneading those mountains just the way I want them.

Well, that's it right there, isn't it? I think ultimately we all do this because we love creating. Sure, if you get some cash from a commission, that's cool, and it's also an ego stroke to get praise from the Guildies, but ultimately you're satisfying your own creative itch before anything else.

Speaking of ego-stroking - that is looking fantastic. If you follow through with the same level of detail throughout the whole map, this will be a stunner.

[Caenwyr]

Very interesting approach. It also sounds super intensive

Hah, I guess it is huh? But man I enjoy every geeky minute of it. Glad to have arrived at the actual city-ing though!

Well, that's it right there, isn't it? I think ultimately we all do this because we love creating. Sure, if you get some cash from a commission, that's cool, and it's also an ego stroke to get praise from the Guildies, but ultimately you're satisfying your own creative itch before anything else.

Speaking of ego-stroking - that is looking fantastic. If you follow through with the same level of detail throughout the whole map, this will be a stunner.

Gee Diamond, thanks a lot! I do hope it will, although it's gonna take a silly amount of time before it will actually start looking like a decent city map instead of a crumpled-up piece of paper.

But! I'm getting there, baby step by baby step. Below you'll find my first endeavours apart from the terrain: a sprinkle of buildings, the lake, some trees and a splash of parchment colour. Still tons of additional colour to be added to the terrain, obviously.

None of the elements seem to be bonded to the terrain really well at this point, but that will get tackled once I've added in all the elements. Which means in about 3 billion years or so.

Ostwyc_2.jpg

Thoughts? Suggestions? Let 'em come!

[Caenwyr]

Alright. I've spent last night and this morning on an overhaul of the terrain shading. Now the sun is somewhat lower in the sky (30° above the horizon as opposed to 45° in the previous iteration), which helps illustrate the size of the mountains relative to the houses. I also drew in some more of those, and started plonking in some trees, walls, towers and more of that funny business .

It's beginning to look like an actual city district you could walk around in, although I've still got a ton more to do.

Ostwyc_3.jpg Ostwyc_3b.jpg

[Caenwyr]

This is an update!

Ostwyc_5.jpg

[Caenwyr]

Alright people! I added some more building blocks — I had completely forgotten how tedious a job that is! — and redid the southern walls. I kept the old ones in the north as they were, nice and dark-medieval, but decided to redo the southern ones inspired by the walls of Pingyao.

That proved a harder job than I expected! For one, on this scale such details are nigh on impossible to draw in, unless you work with vector shapes (you can give a shape a thickness well below one pixel). The second problem I had is that Photoshop kept crashing whenever I tried to add vector shapes! You see my problem?

I spent the better part of this morning trying to solve it, and failed. So I whipped up SketchUp and did the job there. Re-importing the work back to Photoshop is a pain, especially if you want the shading to be right, but it worked.

So this is the walls in SketchUp:
NEW walls.png
(notice how every other bit of relief has been flattened — there's actually a huge beast of a rock between the two walls)

And this is the result, along with the additional building blocks:
Ostwyc_8.jpg

[Falconius]

Holy Moly that is a hell of a lot of bricks.

The wall style looks great on your map. I do have to wonder at your decision to not wall the sides, If I were attacking I'd definitely force a part of my army to climb the mountains and grab one of the gates in a sneak attack. Or try and infiltrate them into the massive population slowly for a month or so until there was enough of a force to surprise attack one of the gates from inside the city. I would think that even with watch towers and garrisons in those hills it would be too hard an area to effectively monitor.

[Caenwyr]

Holy Moly that is a hell of a lot of bricks.

The wall style looks great on your map. I do have to wonder at your decision to not wall the sides, If I were attacking I'd definitely force a part of my army to climb the mountains and grab one of the gates in a sneak attack. Or try and infiltrate them into the massive population slowly for a month or so until there was enough of a force to surprise attack one of the gates from inside the city. I would think that even with watch towers and garrisons in those hills it would be too hard an area to effectively monitor.

Hey Falconius! Thanks for that input! I will reply in two different strides:

1. You're absolutely right! There are some holes in the defense, which are of course awesome plot devices (never forget, this map depicts a location from my fantasy novel). There won't be as many as you fear though, no worries.
2. To fix the majority of the defense holes, I intend to wall off all passes (no gates, because you're not supposed to enter the city that way), and put watch towers on all of the peaks in between the walled sections. I haven't drawn them in yet because I struggle a bit with marrying the terrain with the buildings... But I have a few ways in mind that might work. First I wanna get the city blocks done, and then I'm back to the defense structures, such as the huge fort on that hill.

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Alright peeps, here's my next update! Added another city district, and threw in a massive amphitheatre. If you feel it looks silly large, just keep in mind that it's only 85% the size of the Colosseum in Rome (160 m along its longest axis as opposed to 187 m for the Colosseum). I don't mind its massiveness personally, but I do feel feel it's weird how large it is compared to that temple complex, which in turn was modeled after the Aya Sophia in Constantinople on a roughly 1:1 basis. But hey, I guess real world numbers can be weird!

I spent a good hour on that amphitheatre alone, but I really like how it turned out, especially that awning!

Ostwyc_9.jpg

[HughVoodoo]

Hey Caenwyr. Great progress you've made! I would love nothing more than to see a tutorial of your process, as I love your style.

[Falconius]

Alright peeps, here's my next update! Added another city district, and threw in a massive amphitheatre. If you feel it looks silly large, just keep in mind that it's only 85% the size of the Colosseum in Rome (160 m along its longest axis as opposed to 187 m for the Colosseum). I don't mind its massiveness personally, but I do feel feel it's weird how large it is compared to that temple complex, which in turn was modeled after the Aya Sophia in Constantinople on a roughly 1:1 basis. But hey, I guess real world numbers can be weird!

That is interesting, it really puts the size into perspective.

I spent a good hour on that amphitheatre alone, but I really like how it turned out, especially that awning!

It looks really good, time well spent.

[Caenwyr]

Hey Caenwyr. Great progress you've made! I would love nothing more than to see a tutorial of your process, as I love your style.

Thanks Hugh! I would really like to do a tutorial on this some day, but I'm afraid I'm currently terribly short on time, and the little time I have I prefer to use for mapping itself. But I promise I will do a tutorial once things have slowed down a bit over here.

That is interesting, it really puts the size into perspective.
It looks really good, time well spent.

Thanks! Glad to hear you like the job!

Alright, here's one of the more minor updates again. Roughly two hours' work, but nothing really impresive, just a bunch more houses. Slowly creeping north!

Ostwyc_10.jpg