March 2020 Mapping Challenge: Aryana Archwynd's Estate

[Tiana]

Everyone else is going for "existing fandom lair"... I am not. Well, technically a little bit. This does come from what would have happened in my webcomic. I used to make a webcomic which is still online if you want to read it, but unfinished and unlikely to be finished as a webcomic (though I am still working with the lore in NOVEL form, working on what happened before this point so I better understand my own lore) (Look it hasn't been updated since 2013, it's not that I don't care, I just don't even know how to return to it even though I know what was supposed to happen) (Complicated relationship with my own work...)

As it stands, I'm making it so I can use it for a DnD game I might run, but I couldn't resist the urge to actually make a "lair" from my own comic.

In its current state, we have a base for what will become the two levels of the house (level one is covered, level two is open) and the ground level, which is open underneath the house (raised up on posts... the sort of floating sci-fi circular platforms is a hallmark of the aesthetic I gave to that world) and some surrounding gardens and walkways. The metallic rounds are bowl-shaped underneath, and may have once served as enormous call bells, but now they stand silent.

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What you need to know (unless you don't want to know what I think about my own work's direction / DON'T WANT ZA SPOILERS) is, one of the characters is named Atrina and she goes through a gate, finding another world on the other side, in which she is often referred to as "Aryana". Aryana seems to be dead, and historically irrelevant to Atrina's perspective, a person she doesn't know/remember. She is considered to be the return of Aryana in this place. So the aestetic of the round buildings with large amounts of outer balconies etc is seen in the palace of Tavar which she enters on passing through; this is modelled after that aesthetic but is in fact not a map of that palace, but Aryana's actual estate home in the past prior to her defeat. Is Aryana the villain if you read what's there? I'd say that bombshell never properly went off and most people read Tavar as the villain, but yes, Aryana was meant to be the villain of the past events which occurred. Not the only problem in the world, but certainly a problem. Atrina was definitely intended eventually find this location to get some facts about Aryana that weren't filtered through Tavar's enormous bias, and what that meant the people of this world saw her as heralding. Buuut the story never got there, it's still just a couple of chapters of Atrina exploring the new world and her family's reaction to her vanishing, and while I drew pencils for "Leawyn talks to dad" that part never got colored and thus never posted. I'm not sure I'd recommend reading it, though it's not all bad work. Tighter than my first webcomic, which I will NOT link.

Storywise, I intended for Leawyn to discover Xerida's home with its gate. Aryana's Estate would have been Atrina's final stop in the world of Wynd before she finally came into knowing what she represented, and where the events which caused the world as we know it to be destroyed unfolded. From this location, Aryana deactivated the waypoint gates, locking every world hub back up. From a certain point of view, she might have been a hero. This location would have seen Leawyn and Atrina meet back up, but both armed with new levels of knowledge about what their existence in their respective worlds actually meant. Taking control over this location and its gateway would have given Atrina the ability to undo or escalate Aryana's choice.

[Bogie]

Looking good Tiana.
Don't forget to use the WIP hashtag on your next post.

[Eowyn Cwper]

Looks like my name would fit your world. Looking forward to see your progress!

[Tiana]

Thanks, Bogie, spaced out on that one.

Looks like my name would fit your world. Looking forward to see your progress!

You're right about that. It's pretty close. You would just have to append to your surname a noun representing your status or element, or verb representing your role. Archwind is half title. Same with Stargazer. Because I'm pretty sure that Leawyn and Atrina's family name is Vilanar (a super common family name in my work; it's a bit of a Smith, there are SO MANY VILANARS.) For the lore of this specific story, these are descriptive roles that have muddied together into surnames with their significance long forgotten. Bit of an elemental thing, bit of a cyberpunk thing.

Eowyn definitely fits! I always liked the wyn name ending.

I did get around to scraping together some more of the map, populating the regions of the "ground level" and doing a bit of a thingy (writes good) to try make it clearer that this is still a raised platform above the level of the commoners with their fields below.

I really like that central pool. And I think the juxtaposition of all of these things, outside in the open, beside each other, screams volumes about what kind of person Aryana is.

I also, even though probably no one here cares about the lore behind it too much, managed to do the thing I do to the comic panels whenever Atrina's getting dragged into Aryana's story, with the vines, though not quite as well rendered at this point. I think it is an appropriate variation into "map border" however.
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lair of the once queen maid ground level.jpg

[Bogie]

Nice update.

[Tiana]

Thanks, Bogiemeister.

Got all 3 layers on a single page again, a little fiddly to get them all together but if I get to finishing it I'll probably try balancing it with some text in the bottom right and top left. I didn't usually do totally square panels so it didn't feel right when I had tidy boxed versions side by side, for it to be a representation or extension of the original story I had to stay true to its origin layout style.

I also managed to get walls in for the inner layer and the glass maze on the upper balcony. Made a fun asset set to do the handrails and walls, I might share it later (also a clip studio brush, as well as the hedge maze) And the stair connections on the upper two layers.

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lairoftheoncequeen-all3.jpg

[Bogie]

Cool, I like this arrangement.

[TimetoDraw]

Wow, there's so much detail and colour to take in, it looks great!

With there being so much detail, I can't help but wonder if a solid green border (like you have around the outside) would help bound in all the detail and keep the focus on the drawings. I find the faded black a little distracting or something. Perhaps this is just me.

[Tiana]

Thanks, Bogie and Time to Draw. Glad you like it, I appreciate the thoughts even if that's not the direction I've gone. Does not really match the aesthetic of the comic. I scribbled in some new vines and made sure to get rid of that border edge to get any thought of straight lines out of your head, lol. I also did a depth of field blur to try make the art of those sections pop more. And some text/a legend. Hopefully that pulls it together a bit more.

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[TimetoDraw]

The new vines border it off really well, really liking it. I think I'll skip the justice and processing rooms if on a tour thanks. The polo room will suit me