Village of Fuervald

[Sapiento]

A pretty little village!

[Wired]

A great piece, as usual, I might add. I'm always very fond of your somewhat desaturated color style and great level of detail.

[J.Edward]

Seems I've gotten behind in responding. Must remedy that.

Great work J. It amazes me how fast you have done this map. And you have a website too I see. It looks great!

-Dan

Thanks Dan. I was working on a map yesterday for a few hours and will work a bit more today.
I might have cracked the one-day town map - though this one is a bit smaller.

I feel exactly the same.

Yep. That's why I'm trying to develop some other styles that might work for clients with less budget. We'll see how that goes.

I love the style you use for these small maps. Larb is right; that circular layout seems prevalent in your better worlds

Haha, it is. I do like a circular layout. Something intriguing about it.

I love flowers - my favourite flower is the bluebell, but I'm very fond of common flowers too - even dandelions. (and you can make wine from those by the way...) So it has always seemed natural for me to add them in. I also think they add extra subtle colour to a map too but mostly I like them.

I see this a lot particularly from people who are all "I want a village/town/city map that looks schleyish/like whatever but that I can do/can be done quickly". I just don't think you can do them quickly outside of plopping down predrawn buildings and things. It's one of the reasons I love settlement maps so much - they are more intimate with great room for characterful features, but are obviously more work as a result. Sure anyone can do them (and I encourage everyone to give them a try!) but there is a lot of time and effort involved. My own process is pretty refined but it still takes ages. So the cost should reflect that if you're going for the level of detail as in this map.

I was just looking at some awesome flowering succulents and cacti the other day. Such awesome color and variation.
Might have to do a desert scene soon so I can drop some of those in there.

Flowers do make the world a very different place, and a much better one I'd say.
I've lived in some rather drab places through the years so I think that sometimes bleeds into my work. Not often as flowery as other places.
Plus I haven't been hiking in forever, which I used to do all the time, so my local influences lately have been industrial parks near where I live.

I wish clients understood that whole view that you just described. That would make it all easier.
I try to explain it to them, but they don't seem to appreciate it till they see the finished map and realize just how much work ti is.
Of course they don't offer more at that point.

Attachment 83175

Great job John! Can't get enough of your city maps, so it's good to hear you try to figure out a way to make even more...

Haha, that's good. Sagemounding and Haerleching... maybe Menzheiming.

Even using a program like Campaign Cartographer that uses pre made buildings can take quite a while to make a city if you are looking for one to be made well (ask Clercon about that )

From my experience, making cities is the most time consuming style of map to make, especially when people always seem to want you to put in very specific looking buildings and have the streets laid out a certain way. Then there is the problem of rivers. How do you make the city fit along the waterway, yet still get it too look like the vision the person who commissioned the map wants it to look, because often they have no idea what it should really look like. They always seem to want extra weird things to be happening near the water, like extravagant city/waterfall interactions, and weird, elven like structures near the water that defy the laws of physics, even though the rest of the city might be an Italian theme.

That is so true. People do want some odd incongruous stuff sometimes. The best commissions are the ones when they let 'you' decide on these things, you know, since you're the map maker and have the experience and knowledge and such.

Beautiful map once again. Love all the small details that fills is and makes it whole. And like the underpass arrows as well it is a map after all And thanks for the description of your work - always interesting to see how peoples process are

Thanks tilt. My pleasure.

A pretty little village!

Thanks Sap

A great piece, as usual, I might add. I'm always very fond of your somewhat desaturated color style and great level of detail.

You know, part of that is due to my old cintiq monitor and its poorly calibrated color. The 21UX monitors were always bad with correct color calibration.
Plus, new led monitors and displays are brighter than older monitors were so things have changed some with color representation.
I have to check my work on my other monitor to make sure it looks right. Might be upgrading monitors this year though.

[Ilanthar]

12-18h of work and you're getting this? Now I'm clearly jealous !

Certainly a well-used time. It's splendid, and as the others said, I love your city (or village) maps and I fully understand the wish to lower the time-consuming aspect of those maps (a hard task when like you, you're putting so much details in it!).

[J.Edward]

12-18h of work and you're getting this? Now I'm clearly jealous !

Certainly a well-used time. It's splendid, and as the others said, I love your city (or village) maps and I fully understand the wish to lower the time-consuming aspect of those maps (a hard task when like you, you're putting so much details in it!).

Thanks Ilanthar.
Yes, you certainly know the time for a large city.

[ChickPea]

Wow, such beautiful work! I'm kinda amazed that you can bang this out in two days. I do realise that pros are much faster, but still. It does not look like a two day project. At all.

[J.Edward]

Wow, such beautiful work! I'm kinda amazed that you can bang this out in two days. I do realise that pros are much faster, but still. It does not look like a two day project. At all.

Thanks ChickPea
I can be tough to do in that short a time.
Sore hands are a definite.

[ChickPea]

I think Haerlech has toughened you up!

[J.Edward]

I think Haerlech has toughened you up!

Haha, yes, that it did.
It's much harder for me to get beat down by one of my maps now.
Of course, that's part of why I need to do them fast - so they can't turn into another Haerlech journey.
Only one of those ever year or two. I think the redo of Shrivenshire has turned into the next one.