[WIP] Inis Caernon
If some of you have seen my introduction post, you know I've been working on worldbuilding for a family game of Pathfinder in a homebrew world. There are some projections of my master map there, it's a bit rough as of now but I'll go about detailing it a bit at a time. For now I have landmasses and tectonics, oceanic currents, basic climate zones. I've drawn inspiration for Artifexian, buit I'm not going as much into detail as he does for two reasons. First I'm not going for scientifically acurate, but more for generally believeable. Second I need to manage my ADD and if I go too far I'll get stuck in a documentation loop where I'll spend months trying to be as precise as I can and never actually make anything.
Anyway, that master map is a DM tool and absolutely not intended for players eyes. I aim for a relatively modern level of information on that one, info their character would absolutely not have. So now comes the time to start the second phase of the project: producing value for my players. And by value, I mean diegetic maps (ie. maps that are actual in-game items their characters have access to). And I start with their starting location of course, and the first map of my world's atlas : the maps of Inis Caernon, an island roughly 350 km tall and 500 km wide set at 45°N and 45°E along the coast of a much bigger, yet unnamed continent. The climate of the island is humid subtropical, and though the center of the island is rather hilly, the relief is low. There we can find the characters' village, le Repos de Berwyn (Berwyn's Rest), and the city of Caerbryn, home of one of the world's most renowned universities.
Now that the setting is set, let's get down to business. The goal is, as stipulated, to make an actual in-game map. The aim here is aesthetics, not precision. I've made an equidistant conic projection of the region since we're in temperate regions, using GProjector, with standard parallels of 50°N and 40°N. Using Illustrator I've set it on an A4 format, portrait oriented and framed it. I've also redrawn graticules for each degree of longitude and latitude, that may or may not end in the final product, we'll see.
40-50NPlan de travail 1.png
Since the scale of the map is vastly narrower than the world map, I've proceeded to redraw the coastlines. Now keep in mind this is an in-game item, so I may have leaned a bit to the dramatic side to emphasize the artists vision. It is also clearly intended for the mapmaker to be an unreliable narrator. There may or may not be things like paper towns in the final map, that may or may not be used as a narrative device later in the campaign.
40-50N_redrawnPlan de travail 1.png
And the next step for this post is to import my vector coastline in Photoshop and start painting the actual, final product coastlines. I've made three passes: one with a thin brush, the second following the lines with a larger brush to add a bit of weight, then a third one emphasizing the south-facing lines to give relief to the map.
40-50N.png
Next step will probably be to draw the terrain. See you then.
Most of the relief on the main islands is done. The part of the continent on the north-east is mostly flatlands but I might add some there anyway, will see later. I'll go about drawing rivers now, will see if some higher lands need to be added later.
40-50N_relief.png
Main rivers are done, will add some more later when doing the rest. Next step will be to place settlements.
40-50N_rivers.png
Today has been a productive day. Not only have I placed my settlements but I've done quite a bit of landscaping and placed the main roads. I'm not completely satisfied with some of the forests though. I might redo them down the line. Or not, because that's definitely the most time consuming part. Any advice about them is more than welcome...
40-50N_forests.png
Edit: Oh, I forgot to talk about the lettering. I really wanted to hand draw the letters because I need the imperfection to add consistency. I didn't want to go completely free hand, though, so I settled for redrawing a font by hand. I used IM Fell DW Pica Pro, from a great collection of old fonts digitalized by Igino Marini. They're also free to use (a few conditions apply, check his website), which is awesome for such a quality tool.
Last edited by hregrin; 04-20-2022 at 07:33 PM.
Ok, again a nive productive session. I've finished the landscapes, drawn sea routes, and added some embellishments. Everything is redrawn over reference (apart from the boat, that one's mine). I'm pretty happy with the looks of it so I might call the linework done. Now I'm going to ponder whether I use an old paper texture in the background, and whether I use color or not. If so I want it to look like inks or water painting. Will see...
40-50N_linework.png
It went faster than I thought but after a good day of work I decided to call this map done. Here's the finished thread: https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...50749&p=442013
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