The Civilized World and Known Parts of the Wild

[Lingon]

@Neyjour: Thanks, that's very helpful! There was actually a paragraph in the guidelines that said we can't trace Google maps, but to be technical I don't think I did, I only followed it roughly but the detail on the coasts and rivers are my own (as the inhabitants of the setting wouldn't be able to make completely accurate maps). And anyway, if the novel ever gets published I'll probably have to draw a new map, in a simpler style than I'm planning for this one, so yeah, I think I'm safe And thanks for the compliments, I'm glad you like the mountains! Rivers are squiggly, yes I guess i like them that way. Colors will be coming soon, just have to ink the mountains first

@Mwmagro: Thank you!

[Lingon]

Got the mountains inked today:
KändaVärlden3.jpg

Also decreased the image size a little, it won't be extremely detailed so it doesn't have to be so big. It's still way bigger than the actual drawing though!

Thinking of putting a cartouche in the upper right corner, where there's nothing going on, though I don't have any ideas for it yet so maybe I'll get started on coloring instead and paint a separate cartouche later, and place it digitally.

[Viking]

This looks very cool so far Lingon. This lmakes me think of some place in south east asia from the river patterns. A cartouche in the top right makes sense and I would definitely advice placing it later digitally OR drawing it on a separate sheet of paper and then scanning it in so you can place it digitally later and have the bonus of it being consistent linequality wise to the rest of the map as it will be a hand drawn element instead of a digitally created one. Do you plan to print this at all?

[- Max -]

I may be wrong, it seems the perspective looks very odd. Some rivers going straight up to bottom doesn't make the pseudo-iso perspective you used on mountains to draw them.

[Lingon]

@Viking: Thank you! Drawing it by hand was what I meant, and probably the path I'll take Not planning to print it at the moment, but it depends on how much stuff I end up adding digitally. If the final version becomes very different from the one I'm painting and scanning, I might at least check how much it would cost

@Max: Yeah, you are right as always I don't really know why I chose to do it that way, I guess I didn't think it through enough. Do you think I should try to do something about it, does it look really bad? I could probably paint white over some parts and repaint them to make the rivers more iso-ish… just not sure if it would be worth it?

[Neyjour]

You're welcome, Lingon.

Love the new update! I've been looking at a lot of regional/world maps lately, and the one thing that fascinates me the most are the mountains, and all the different styles and techniques. And I really love the style of yours for this map. They're looking even more wonderful now with the additional shading!

[- Max -]

@Max: Yeah, you are right as always I don't really know why I chose to do it that way, I guess I didn't think it through enough. Do you think I should try to do something about it, does it look really bad? I could probably paint white over some parts and repaint them to make the rivers more iso-ish… just not sure if it would be worth it?

Not sure it worths it, that would probably need some heavy erasing/ re-drawing work and I'm not sure the inked hand drawn style can handle it :/

[Lingon]

@Neyjour: Thanks, man! I love experimenting with mountain styles, and the type I'm using here is the one I'm the most happy with

@Max: Yup, lots of redrawing. I'll take the easy way this time and leave the rivers as they are, I think. But I'll definitely keep your point in mind for my next map. Thanks for the feedback!

I had a cartouche idea so I sketched it in, posting it here before inking to check if I'm mad or if it works Also drew a border (each segment is a day's ride, or 30 km), a small decoration in the lower right corner, and a test title. I think I should add a decoration in the lower left corner too, for balance, but that I'll have to draw separately as I've already inked some stuff there. This is just the right half of the map, by the way, as that's where the interesting things are
KändaVärlden4.jpg

[Lingon]

Well, no loud objections anyway… so I guess it's good enough?

I'm taking a break from this map now, to work on a commission. I'll be back, and any other over-used movie references that might be appropriate.

[Lingon]

Project resumed

I colored the mountains and painted in a base tone for the land. The green is very uneven, but most of it will be covered in forest so I'm not so worried. Will touch up the coasts and river banks a bit though. I also inked the cartouche and corner decoration, and failed at inking the border, so I painted white over it and will add a new one digitally, I think.
KändaVärlden5.jpg

There are a couple of things I'm not sure about now, so I'm posting what i have before moving on. For the cartouche, I was thinking of painting the curtains a very muted red, but maybe that will stand out too much no matter how muted I make it? Don't really want it to become brown… Maybe blue could work, as that will be balanced by the water when that's colored? And the second thing, around the edge I plan to have the map fade into some parchment color, and here I was thinking of going more grey-brown than yellow – would that complement and balance the grey mountains, or make the map too grey? I sorta know what I think myself, but a second opinion is always good

Oh, and I also tested some labels on dark, highly textured backgrounds (read forests), inspired by how Max does it on his Oraven maps. The text is in swedish but it's just nonsense so it doesn't matter
Texttest.jpg