Chashio's Mapvember 2017

[Chashio]

Whoa what? Is that a city?

More or less. Probably mostly less. Certainly not a planned city.

[Blaidd Drwg]

More or less. Probably mostly less. Certainly not a planned city.

Post more! I wanna know

[Mouse]

Pleeeeese finish the city?

These are just a delight to absorb

[Voolf]

Nice sketches Chashio. Love those landscape-mappish drawings . I am also interested to see more of that last city

[XCali]

Hey! Nice drawings!

I just wanted to know how you stay true to the geography when you take a side view map and then do a top down? It's something I'm having a hard time at the moment figuring out.

[Chashio]

Pleeeeese finish the city?
These are just a delight to absorb

Thanks Mouse Glad you're enjoying them.

Nice sketches Chashio. Love those landscape-mappish drawings . I am also interested to see more of that last city

Thanks Voolf!

Ugh. I shouldn't have done a city. That was a terrible idea. Sigh. [hangs head] Ok, here's a small update on the ugly scribble city... I've also tried some color to help sort things out but it's even more ugly at the moment and I don't want to kill anyone.
Nolun island city wip2.jpg

...

Hey! Nice drawings!

I just wanted to know how you stay true to the geography when you take a side view map and then do a top down? It's something I'm having a hard time at the moment figuring out.

Thanks XCali

I'm right there with you. The reason I chose to sketch that piece was because I want to teach myself how to visualize spaces better so I can do this more easily. Given that, my explanation may not be very helpful.
I don't stay true to the geography... I make an approximation of it and get close enough for it to look reasonable. If someone looks closely they'll notice some things are a bit off and others that are more off but hopefully they're ok enough that the viewer can suspend disbelief and go with it. I'm saying that first because I've been working to disintegrate my perfectionism because it's exhausting and unhelpful to making progress. I just eyeballed it based on relative locations of points of interest in the scene. One rough spacial visualization method to get it close-ish is to think of a grid floating above the scene you want to map... there's a whole lot of 'ish' involved, as in... that's about here-ish and this goes around there-ish...
rough spacial grid overlay.JPG
And the grid perspective isn't accurate either... I just dropped one on quickly for general effect. I'm doing really well against perfectionism [while cringing inside].

[Blaidd Drwg]

You really are too hard on yourself! The city actually looks quite interesting to me, partly because it's so sketchy. Like it doesn't want to share its secrets or something.
And thanks for the grid explanation: I think I'll give that a try some time. I usually sketch the layout and then use the reform selection tool in photoshop to make a perspective from that.

[Mouse]

I agree! You really are too hard on yourself, Chashio!

I like the city for more or less exactly the same reasons, so there's got to be something about the way you draw cities

Most of the time I'm like you when it comes to perspective maps, but sometimes I do a top down map and stretch the x scale to 1.6 its original length, then build my mountains and what have you on top of the old top down view.

[Chashio]

Yep, I am. I'm working on not being so hard on myself... but it is not easy.

Thank you both. and I like that, Blaidd Drwg, about secrets.

I've been told it's easier to start with the top down view and I've tried it that way as well... I did that with the Cladonia map... but usually I think up the perspective view first and then have to scratch it out the other way.

[Blaidd Drwg]

Yep, I am. I'm working on not being so hard on myself... but it is not easy.

I know right? This mapvember thing is helping me lot though, so I'm glad you're on board as well.
It's nice to have a forum full of cheerleaders, I think