The Cursed Shores, a WIP

[ThomasR]

Hi fellows,

It's been way too long since I've been able to dedicate some time to a personal project. To be perfectly honest, I still do not have that time but I NEED to do something else than drawing maps for others to keep some sanity so, I'll do this one alongside commissioned maps.

It started this morning in the park while my daughter was playing with my wife. I took five minutes of the whirlwind (her name's Alice) to doodle something and here's what I got :
D7e0KI6WsAA8JjM.jpg

The two hour nap of this afternoon allowed me to flesh it out more and find its purpose. It's gonna be a pirate map and here's the first WIP :

Cursed shores1.jpg

I went a bit crazy with the skull but I'll clean that later. BTW, the original file is A3 in size.

As always, any comment is welcome. Hope you like that start, it'll force me to be a bit more present on the forum.

Cheers !

[delguidance]

Is the skull one of the poles?

Looking at the map, there's lots of straits or narrow areas. So what occurred to me is that maybe some of these would be important trade routes and hence more heavily traveled and protected.

[Voolf]

uh... spooky ! Me like it
Tentacles and other stranger things at sea and land highly needed

[ThomasR]

Is the skull one of the poles?

Looking at the map, there's lots of straits or narrow areas. So what occurred to me is that maybe some of these would be important trade routes and hence more heavily traveled and protected.

Nope, the skull is only here as a thematic decoration. Actually, your comment is on the spot The pirates hiding in those straits are the scourge of traders and damn hard to unroot. I planned the Cursed Shores as some sort of Pirate Kingdom/Republic, I haven't decided yet.

uh... spooky ! Me like it
Tentacles and other stranger things at sea and land highly needed

Glad you do Rafal It actually was inspired by your latest piece with its broken lands. I'll pack as much weirdness as I can indeed

[XCali]

Ah man. I totally get the situation. Somewhere I was also busy with a string of commissions and had to just take a breath and do a personal project to refresh my mind. It really does help.

Anyway, really cool compass and the landmass shapes is quite elaborate, so well done.
Good luck with the rest, and I hope you also find some relaxation in doing this project.

-Omri

[ThomasR]

Ah man. I totally get the situation. Somewhere I was also busy with a string of commissions and had to just take a breath and do a personal project to refresh my mind. It really does help.

Anyway, really cool compass and the landmass shapes is quite elaborate, so well done.
Good luck with the rest, and I hope you also find some relaxation in doing this project.

-Omri

I do (even if I'll have to dive back into commissions pretty soon), thanks Omri !

A little bit of advancement with a background texture, the first coastal waves and some colors on a sword (I'm not happy with the crystal colors or with the brass on the guard, I'll have to redo those. BTW, I use that sword to learn how to paint objects). Some background on the cutlass will come.

Cursed shores2.jpg

I might do two version of the map as the urge of drawing a torn parchment is growing and I fear the land overlapping the border will not work. I'll have to add some islands and make some islands and other land features overlap the border like John did on his Bist map. I'm also still not sold on color or sepia. Might end up with three versions after all, that's gonna be a good study

[XCali]

I do (even if I'll have to dive back into commissions pretty soon), thanks Omri !

A little bit of advancement with a background texture, the first coastal waves and some colors on a sword (I'm not happy with the crystal colors or with the brass on the guard, I'll have to redo those. BTW, I use that sword to learn how to paint objects). Some background on the cutlass will come.



I might do two version of the map as the urge of drawing a torn parchment is growing and I fear the land overlapping the border will not work. I'll have to add some islands and make some islands and other land features overlap the border like John did on his Bist map. I'm also still not sold on color or sepia. Might end up with three versions after all, that's gonna be a good study

Hahaha. Yeah, I know the feeling. My Sambria map is turning out to be at a place where I also will need more than one version of it to convey my very different intentions with it.

Thinking about the crystals reminds me, I had a hard time figuring it out too. But, yesterday I had some good success with it. On my Current Project, I drew the line art and then chose the colour I want the crystal to be, I took the same VALUE of that colour but very dark and threw it in under the line art. Then with the Dodge tool(and a random cloud brush) I coaxed the brighter colour out of the crystal. Maybe it will work for you too.

Have a nice day

[MistyBeee]

Damn, what a lot of creeks and bays and straits to hide a pirate ship !
Cool sword, by the way