November/December 2015 Challenge : Promising Loot in Musfat Spaceport
Hello everybody,
I'm really excited to post my first wip for a normal challenge here, and even more so, because i was commisioned by Meshon with a great concept for a map. As he wrote already in this month's challenge thread, we were thinking of collaborating a bit more, and working together on a general theme for both commisions.
So, some days ago i got an incoming transmission:
Salazar, you old scoundrel! How've you been? I know we didn't part on the best of terms, but I'm willing to forgive and forget. Listen, I'm wondering if you still have that map. Where we saw it. Not that I'm planning to go get the loot for myself or anything, I just wanted to look at the map again.
It was that old space port, what was it called again? Way out in the dunes near that oasis, pretty broken down place, like it was built over top of some ancient alien ruins or something. Almost like a small town, except nobody lived there. Aside from those bandits who set up their camp there. I wonder if they're still around, or if someone else kicked them out. Lots of narrow streets and dead ends, kind of a maze, hard to find your way in without a map, right? I remember there were landing bays, three I think? But I don't remember how to get to the one where the ship was. I know there was a pretty good view from the gunnery tower but that didn't help much on the ground. Automated weapon systems to shoot down anyone who tried to come in by air and lots of strange machines scattered around. Some of those were traps I think. Be sure and mark those down for me. Not that I'd ever dream of going after that cargo myself...
Take care of yourself you old pirate, and don't go chasing after any valuable cargo by yourself, you hear?
Here we go:
### Latest WIP ###
SpaceportWIPI.jpg
I started doing a nice Background parchment first. I thought about doing the map on a more modern/sci-fi type of "canvas", but i wanted to have a bit of a "treasure-map flair", so i went with it to start things off. Besides stylistic doubts, the background parchment came in handy, as i used the textures on it as inspiration and rough guidelines for the shape of the terrain. I imagined the spaceport in a desert valley bordered by an oil lake. The oil lake was an idea, that came up while thinking about the reason for building a spaceport in a desert region /on a desert planet in the first place (well, interstellar travel is somewhat "post-oil", but i think it could be of some use in the future nonetheless...).
With that at hand (we'll see what Meshon thinks about this idea...), there had to be a refinery complex too. So i blocked in some rough outlines for the major locations.
Landing zones:These are the defining locations of the map. Two of them are built into the cliffs, where the hangars are dug in. These are platforms, constructed above the town's buidings. They where connected by a bridge, to shortcut the way through the maze-like medina below. Nowadays it is mainly destroyed. The third one will be be on the ground in between the houses. This will be the "central" location of the map, as it is connected to the map Meshon is doing. So the location isn't entirely fixed for now. Nearby the landing zones i'll add the mentioned automated anti-aircraft systems. Maybe i'll place some of them on roofs in the neighbouhood of the landing zones, and some on top of the cliffs.
Gun tower:The one mentioned, with a good view on the whole area.
The old refinery complex: The area at the lakeside should be covered with silos, pipelines, refinery buildings and other "industrial" stuff
Gouvernor's Palace: I added this building to have another major location and "point of interest". I thought the mentioned group of bandits could have established their camp there. Haven't fully fleshed this building out now, but it'll be sitting on top of a hill and is more of a well defended fortress.
Between these locations, there will be many nested(?)/interlaced(?) buildings (mostly flat-roofed) forming a maze-like system of narrow alleys and streets. I played around a bit with a texture i used for the buildings on my Kharoun map, but i'd like to make the buildings hand-drawn. I also thought about generating a random maze with one of the many free maze generators around, and use it as a base for this. I just started to make some of them, to get an idea of how they could look like.
For the coloring, i just used grey tones with the layer set to overlay/multiply. I liked the result, and will keep it for now.
The font is just a test of one of my freshly downloaded sci-fi fonts. Not really good to read, but i think i'll stick at least with the color.
Well, that's it for a start.I'll discuss some further aspects, like the old alien ruins, questions regarding the scale, etc. in my next post.
Comments, critique, suggestions (especially from my fellow space pirate...) are, as always, very welcome!
Cheers,
AL
