Mapvember 2018

[Voolf]

Voolf, for some inspiration, I do believe the Kickapoo are a native people of the US who fought with Tecumseh. That certainly hives me a few ideas.

Thanks, that is helpful

[MapMappingMapped]

My pleasure!

[MistyBeee]

I planned to participate and even started a template for it, but finally won't be able to find time. November is hard for me too : just after Inktober and when I'm trying to spare time for a quieter December. Mapril would have my vote ! ^^
However, I expect with pleasure to see your participations, guys

[Voolf]

For me it's not the problem of a month. November or April does not make any difference. The problem lies in the core idea of the challange, which is very demanding.

NaNoWriMo focus on 1 work that you have to finish within a month. It does not force you to write every day. You can manage your time writing more on days you are free and not writing anything when you are busy.

Inktober is fairly flexible as you can just sketch everything and anything and doesn't require much time per drawing. Sketch of a person is enough, face is enough, or even a simple ring with some engraving.

Mapvember on the other hand is different story, because if you want a compelling map, you have to draw a lot more than just a sketch of a face. Of course noone says you have to draw big detailed map, but still you have to draw more than a road, or a mountain, which in Inktober is often enough.

That is my opinion.

[Ilanthar]

I'm late on EVERYTHING (non-map related things also). So, I cherished the idea, but never planned to participate this year...
I'm eager to see this edition, though

[ThomasR]

@Rafal : You have to remember one thing, Mapvember originated from the OSR community with hatching style dungeons. From experience, these do not take that much time but when you lean towards regional maps or more elaborated (what a euphemism !) map such as yours (encounter and regional), it's much more to chew. What I'd recommend, as someone who tried both Inktober (with maps) and Mapvember, is to use this to take things less seriously. When I work for a client, I can spend more than 20 hours on an A4 black and white map on my computer. When I draw out of boredom, I can get a fully fleshed map in an hour and a half, even less if I work on A5 size. You can also do what John does, work on (larger) thumbnails that'll be seeds for future maps (and great for your Patreon !). Don't let pressure crush you and use it to remember that you went into mapping for fun first and before all. My completed Inktober took two month as I needed to take some time of but I drew all 31 maps. Not necessarily following the prompts but whatever ! I had fun and learned a great deal. Do not let the huge task unsettle you, you can do it ! My two cents.

[ChickPea]

About Kickapoo, I think it's this song. You can see the lyrics here (a bit NSFW, due to some naughty words!) Don't know if that helps or hinders inspiration....!

I tend to agree with Voolf that the idea of banging out 30 maps is quite daunting, though it's only a personal challenge, and if you don't want to do it some days, you can skip it. I half considered trying, and working on very small regional maps (about 1000px x 1000px only) and setting myself a time limit of about an hour, just to see what I could produce. Not sure though, I think they'd start to get very same-y after about the fifth day!

If you had to tweak the concept of 'Mapvember' to make it more appealing to the Guild, what would you do to improve it?

[Gidde]

If you had to tweak the concept of 'Mapvember' to make it more appealing to the Guild, what would you do to improve it?

Two things. First, put it in a month that doesn't already have a crazy hard challenge in it (like Inktober and NaNoWriMo). Second, I'd do different prompts. Apparently I'm really old; I've never heard of a LOT of those. And I thought I was relatively in tune with pop culture.

[Larb]

I mean Bad Romance should definitely have been a prompt. =P

[Voolf]

@Rafal : You have to remember one thing, Mapvember originated from the OSR community with hatching style dungeons. From experience, these do not take that much time but when you lean towards regional maps or more elaborated (what a euphemism !) map such as yours (encounter and regional), it's much more to chew. What I'd recommend, as someone who tried both Inktober (with maps) and Mapvember, is to use this to take things less seriously. When I work for a client, I can spend more than 20 hours on an A4 black and white map on my computer. When I draw out of boredom, I can get a fully fleshed map in an hour and a half, even less if I work on A5 size. You can also do what John does, work on (larger) thumbnails that'll be seeds for future maps (and great for your Patreon !). Don't let pressure crush you and use it to remember that you went into mapping for fun first and before all. My completed Inktober took two month as I needed to take some time of but I drew all 31 maps. Not necessarily following the prompts but whatever ! I had fun and learned a great deal. Do not let the huge task unsettle you, you can do it ! My two cents.

That is true. I did not know what they originated from, but i suspected it must had been from dungeon hatching maps, as most of mapvember features those. Even so i can't believe Dyson Logos maps (especially those isometric ones) are not tiresome to draw one each day (we have to consider not only drawing time, but also time spend on ideas for the maps) . Of course i understand it is all about fun. I am not saying it is not, but a lot of people will not even start it, because they know they can't finish it. With that in mind it feels like failed challange and nobody likes to fail

If you had to tweak the concept of 'Mapvember' to make it more appealing to the Guild, what would you do to improve it?

To be honest. Forget about Mapvember being part of the CG challange. It is not frankly and i don't think it is in CG CL interest and power to make changes to it. (correct me if i am wrong here).
You can of course make new challange that is based on Mapvember, but make it less painful. Probably less maps per month.
For me the monthly challanges and community project are really the thing, that makes CG stand out.
I particularly has most fun on communities projects, bookmarks especially !