Hand drawn maps

[jshoer]

I usually lightly pencil in the geography, then pencil in the lettering to get a sense of label sizes. After that, I'm not so careful about order of operations when I add the ink - but then, if I added borders around the lettering or I was doing calligraphy, I probably would put the labels down first.

Typically, though, I end up doing coastline, then mountains, then rivers, then forests. That's because I tend to do the fine placement of features organically, so where the mountains are determines where the rivers flow, then where the water is suggests where the trees go, and so on. I do have exceptions for things like mountains drawn in perspective obscuring the shoreline.

Your pencil-shaded relief mountains are awesome.

[Impractical Cartographer]

Meanwhile... I just got a scan.
The map of Middle-earth that I drew for my niece as a Christmas present.

middle-earth2.jpg

Ink, colored pencils & pastels.

[Impractical Cartographer]

In the meantime, I'm breathless...



My Facebook's fan took a scan of my map and made a video he sent me as a gift.

I don't know what to write. Wow!

[Caenwyr]

Woah man, that's fantastic. And they did a great job with it too!

But let's face it, they would never have done this if it weren't for your magnificent ME map, which is an absolute piece of art. My hat off to you sir!

Sent from my SM-A705FN using Tapatalk

[MistyBeee]

Oh, this is so kind, yet so deserved ! ^^

[Impractical Cartographer]

I started working on second sheet of Empire's map for Warhammer Fantasy. Scale 1:800.000 (circa).

2wh5.jpg

This time I decided to describe all the towns in red ink. This definitely improves the readability of the map.
I'm still wondering about the light blue colouring of the rivers.

[MistyBeee]

Aww, this looks great !
What I do when I struggle with this kind of dilemma is to take a pic of my traditional work (no need for a scan here), open it on the computer and add color digitally : this visual helps a lot to check if the color works or not, without ruining the original map. Would this help ?

[Impractical Cartographer]

Because I draw for myself, I can afford the trial and error method.
And I think the red ink idea worked.

### Latest WIP ###
2wh8.jpg

However, I keep thinking about highlighting the rivers with blue watercolor. Maybe I'll use your method, Misty.

[MistyBeee]

The more I see your posts, the more I think I should definitely practice calligraphy again. Hmmm...

[Klaus van der Kroft]

Goodness gracious, looking at these maps is almost insulting!

Representing those of us who have the calligraphic skills of an oscillating seismometre, I say: how dare you make such good maps, sir!