City Map, but with bones!

[muellmonster]

Project Scope:
Looking for maps for a homebrew D&D 5e campaign. 6 maps required. I don't usually do anything super fancy for my homebrew cities, I usually use https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator, but in this case I need a specific detail that I just can't do without some artistic skills (which I don't have haha). If I filled out anything below wrong, or if you have more questions, let me know!

Setting:
A world were cities are built within the bones of Giant titans.

Design Concept:
Standard city, however each city need to incorporate a humanoid skeleton partially buried. For all but the Fallen, I would need the area around the heart underground please! Also, a top down of each city is all I need.

• THE TWINS/THE LOVERS: Has two titans laying side by side, clasping hands. Land between them a park except for one large building between their shoulder area. Reference:
  Reference, The Capital.jpg
• THE FISHER: Lying half in the water half out, as if sitting in a tub. Their arms are spread out wide on the land. Similar position to reference, but legs more bent. There are houses and building in the water as well. Reference:
  Reference, The Fisher.jpg
• THE MOTHER: Sitting cross legged against a volcano, the city itself is within the crossed legs. The arms are basically cradling around the city and most of the chest and back are inside the volcano, but the head is out and looking down. Similar to reference, but a female. Reference:
  Reference, the mother.jpg
• THE WARRIOR: On his back, a giant broadsword sticking out of his chest (NOT NEAR THE HEART) Reference:
  Reference, The Warrior.jpg
• THE FALLEN: face down, mostly on top of the surface, not really buried. Reference:
  Reference, The Fallen.jpg
• THE WIZARD: On it's side, kind of curled up, body half under and half out. Like the reference, but legs less bent. Reference:
  Reference, The Wizard.jpg

The style I'm looking for is more cartoonish, rather than super detailed. Much more in a Roll20 map type style.
This is also a general map world so you can understand the climate etc of the cities:
Veleten.jpg

Number of maps:
One map per city.

Technical:
Jpg, tiff, or png files

Copyright (not sure if I have this right, but am willing to discuss):
I would like reproduction rights to the map. This is for personal use only, however may be used in more than one campaign.
The artist will retain copyright of the map.

Deadline:
Flexible. Campaign is beginning, but I do not mind using theater of the mind for some time. Can also do the maps one at a time. First priority is The Twins/ Lovers

Payment:
Willing to discuss with artist about fair payment. I'm not super rich, but I also want to make sure you are compensated for your time and work.

Contact
Kris Mueller
lululikepie(at)gmail(dot)com

[Olooriel]

That's a pretty intriguing project - I love the concept, so I'd like to give it a try, but I've never done a city map, so I can't really offer a proper example. I usually make battlemaps for Roll20 in the program Dungeondraft, which may match the cartoony style you're looking for, but is potentially too detailed (I'll append an example of a quick building in a park that I just threw together), so I might look into what I could do in Wonderdraft instead. I would prefer it to be paid, since I would have to hand-draw at least the skeletons, but doing the rest in a mapmaking program should keep the price reasonable.

LargeBuilding.png

[muellmonster]

That's a pretty intriguing project - I love the concept, so I'd like to give it a try, but I've never done a city map, so I can't really offer a proper example. I usually make battlemaps for Roll20 in the program Dungeondraft, which may match the cartoony style you're looking for, but is potentially too detailed (I'll append an example of a quick building in a park that I just threw together), so I might look into what I could do in Wonderdraft instead. I would prefer it to be paid, since I would have to hand-draw at least the skeletons, but doing the rest in a mapmaking program should keep the price reasonable.

LargeBuilding.png

HI Olooriel,

Yes! That is the style I am looking for! And of course I would like to reimburse you for your work. If you would like to shoot me an email, we could discuss more details as well as payment.

[Tiana]

I would prefer it to be paid, since I would have to hand-draw at least the skeletons, but doing the rest in a mapmaking program should keep the price reasonable.

I'm posting this because you say 'I've never done a city map before'. You have no idea how much work you're actually getting into with this and whatever you just agreed to is very likely not close to a fair compensation for the time you're about to discover you'll need to spend. I want you to put into perspective the time you just spent to make that one building battlemap, and then multiply it by around 100 times over for a city. Even using a mapping program isn't going to shortcut this to "reasonable rates" with you being fairly compensated. For the record, most of us would consider a reasonable price for one work in that style populating an entire city to be multiple hundreds of dollars. An entire city in that style is going to take you somewhere between 20-50 hours of work, yes, even using mostly premade pieces. It might take longer because you don't have experience doing street layouts. You should do it, but don't agree to do all 6 until you complete one and have a proper comprehension of the amount of work that a city takes. Cities are many times more complicated than a battlemap or a country map, it is generally universally agreed, and there's a reason there's not dozens of replies on this thread for an amazing concept. It's because us practiced mappers know that this could be a 300 hour commitment to get to good and even results for the series in that kind of cartoon style... that's more than two months of working full time on the project.

It's an amazing concept, but cities are harder than people tend to think they are, especially in light of the city generators that make it seem like we should all be able to do it in a few clicks.