High Horn Keep [reanimate]

[J.Edward]

This looks amazing, John. Reminds me of the prep art for the Conan the Barbarian movie (but better if it is possible).

That is a compliment I can really relish
I have always loved the Conan movies and books.
No shame in having Howard as an influence.
Or Ron Cobb, for that matter.

[ThomasR]

Or Ron Cobb, for that matter.

Oh ! Thanks a lot for reminding me his name ! I had lost the link to all his treasures, thanks to you, I have it back

[J.Edward]

I believe he has recently redone his website.
Or at least it appears to have new stuff I hadn't seen before.

[J.Edward]

Here's an update on High Horn.
I spent today working on shadows. Not complete, but a good bit is done.
This one has quite a lot of shadow work.
Due to the complexity, I decided to do the shadows before the color, which is reversed from normal.

### Latest WIP ###
HHK 04-002s.jpg

And remember, this is not in the challenge.
I'm just mapping along with everyone.

[Tiana]

Freakin' amazing, it's unreal how great it looks. If this was colored in a pleasing fashion I would put it on my wall and I don't say that too lightly, this isn't just great city art, it's just charming in so many small ways. Really well done.

Though I don't personally think the seamless double perspective transition would be hard. I guess I'll have to prove it eventually, but I used to do panelless comic pages which had transitions into tons of different perspectives, so I imagine the concept will be similar. By hand it would suck but digitally, you have the ability to layer and clean up the transition if you don't nail it on the first go, and also, you could do the two separate maps on two different files and then bring them together and just draw the transition.

[MistyBeee]

Great progress, J. I love how the shadows make the town pop up. It looks like irradiated with magic.

[ThomasR]

This is gonna be brutal

[- JO -]

You're so good with shadows... So you use sketchup, or it's juste a special mind ability you have ???
(same question for double perspective illustration... )

[J.Edward]

Freakin' amazing, it's unreal how great it looks. If this was colored in a pleasing fashion I would put it on my wall and I don't say that too lightly, this isn't just great city art, it's just charming in so many small ways. Really well done.

Though I don't personally think the seamless double perspective transition would be hard. I guess I'll have to prove it eventually, but I used to do panelless comic pages which had transitions into tons of different perspectives, so I imagine the concept will be similar. By hand it would suck but digitally, you have the ability to layer and clean up the transition if you don't nail it on the first go, and also, you could do the two separate maps on two different files and then bring them together and just draw the transition.

Thanks so much, Tiana
I'm hoping that the end result of the color is pleasing, but we'll see. ;P
I haven't completely decided what color direction I will go.

I can imagine doing comics would get you used to many perspectives of similar scenes.

Great progress, J. I love how the shadows make the town pop up. It looks like irradiated with magic.

Hehe, yeah. The shadow part is arguably the best, most powerful bit. nods.

This is gonna be brutal

I am already glad that I redid that old piece.
It makes me want to try some other ones.

You're so good with shadows... So you use sketchup, or it's juste a special mind ability you have ???
(same question for double perspective illustration... )

Thanks Joel
I did use sketchup and other 3d software for a number of years.
I used to do 3d stock modeling, so I got very familiar with thinking in 3d.
Sometimes I will use sketchup if I need to visualize something that I can't get with sketching.
Or if the time to model is less than the time to sketch and I have a tight deadline.
Doesn't happen often, but it can come up.

[The Elderly Cartographer]

The fortifications are clean and civilized, but there is irony in the primitive horns and Minotaur. Suggesting that maybe the civilization has come from primitive/barbaric beginnings, or maybe that their monarch is a barbarian?
There is most definitely a deep story involved here.

Nice perspective and beautiful landscape.

Good job!