September/October 2024 Challenge: Descoteaux Estate and Ghost Town, 1897

[The Elderly Cartographer]

Descoteaux Estate and Ghost Town, 1897
1 hour and 41 minutes in...

I had been pondering a creepy bayou scene to sketch, so when this challenge came along I changed my idea to a map rather than a illustration.

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Descoteaux Estate and Ghost Town 1.png

[Chashio]

Nice start! I like those architectural details on the mansion.

[The Elderly Cartographer]

Nice start! I like those architectural details on the mansion.

Thanks Chashio! I had to lean hard on a reference picture. Very difficult.
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3 hours and 50 minutes down and an hour and ten to go... I'm biting my nails!

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Descoteaux Estate and Ghost Town, 1897 - 2.png

[The Elderly Cartographer]

FINISHED! Five hours and eight minutes. I was scratching out those blades of grass while watching the deadline fly up like the Concorde.

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Descoteaux Estate and Ghost Town, 1897 - 3.png

[Turambar]

FINISHED! Five hours and eight minutes. I was scratching out those blades of grass while watching the deadline fly up like the Concorde.

### Latest WIP ###
Descoteaux Estate and Ghost Town, 1897 - 3.png

This looks really great, especially for only 5 hrs. I love the house! I will need to think of something for this contest.

[The Elderly Cartographer]

Thank you, Turambar. I was rather satisfied with the way the mansion turned out.

Yes! Please join. The more the merrier!

[Chashio]

Fantastic! I really admire how you somehow managed to make those tree canopies look especially creepy with those pale, draping tops. My mind is suggesting strongly that there are large, ghostly spiders living in those woods and I do not want to live there but it would be very cool to see inside that beautiful mansion

[The Elderly Cartographer]

Thanks Chashio!

I needed swampy trees, so while sketching I made the bottom edges of the trees jagged to imply Spanish Moss. The technique looked like it worked so I went with it. There could be spiders... or Creole bandits. Who knows no one has attempted to explore the ghost town in many decades. As for the mansion, the locals say that the Cajun landlord is so villainous that even Vlad the Impaler would turn down an invite to the mansion, but that is just scuttlebutt. You know how superstitious people invent such crazy things...