July / Aug 2016 Lite Challenge: River raiders temple hideout

[djan]

I have finally decided to join on of these light challenges. I did start out sketching for some of the earlier challenges but never got beyond that stage. The reason I am joining this late is that I am on holiday and didn't have good internet access up until now. The competition is strong on this one. I already see a couple of really nice maps. Ah well, there as worse ways to spend ones time than sitting outside in the sun with paper, pens and a glass of wine.

I am currently working on paper and was planning to scan, clean up and colour the map digitally. However, I only get home a few days before the closing of the competition, so I hope I have am able to finish the map. Perhaps, I'll decide to keep the map black an white and draw everything by hand. We'll see.

A group of river raiders have created a base for themselves in an old ruined temple on one of the thousands of side rivers of a great river that passed through an almost impenetrable jungle. Therefore, almost all
trade goes though this river.

Below is the current sketch

### Latest WIP ###

IMG_20160803_095541.jpg

[ChickPea]

Hey djan, welcome to the challenge. Glad you decided to take the plunge and join in, though I should warn you that the challenges very addictive and, now that you've started, you'll probably end up doing more!

You're off to a great start and it's always nice to see pen/paper maps develop. Looking forward to your next update.

[ladiestorm]

Welcome to the challenge! I'm always fascinated by those with the talent to draw maps, so I'm curious to see what you do! Thus is looking intriguing so far!!!

[djan]

Thanks. I hope it is addictive. I usually find that once I start working on a map, I am enjoy working on it. However, I have problems with starting new projects (and finishing; the deadline of the mapping challenges will probably also help with that).

I forgot to mention my plans. I have now a newly drawn version of the map. However, at the moment it has become dark here and photographing it with my phone in artificial light won't do the map any good. So that will have to wait till tomorrow. I am also working on some more detailed maps of the main buildings and the corner building (which is the main place the bandits hang out). I am planning to inset these in the bottom right of the map and/or perhaps the top left.

[Bogie]

Looking good djan, welcome to the challenge.

[Abu Lafia]

This is a very interesting setting and the overall layout looks really good so far! Looking forward to see it unfold (especially the building insets).

[djan]

Here the version with the redrawn line work (the previous sketch was done in pencil and ballpoint).

### Latest WIP ###

river_bandits_1.jpg



Unfortunately still without the building plans. I am playing around with the colour scheme. I was thinking about something in the lines of the example below (note this is a quick, 5 minute sketch). However, black and white is stlll an option.


river_bandits_1_colour1.jpg

[Bogie]

While B&W is very popular around here, I prefer color!

[djan]

Colour it is then ;-)

I added the insets and started with the labelling. (Am I the only one that finds working with text in the GIMP rather unpleasant; or am I missing some tricks for that?) The shading and colouring will have to wait till I am home and I can use my drawing tablet (using a trackpad for that is unpleasant).


### Latest WIP ###

river_bandits_2.jpg

[ChickPea]

It's looking good. I prefer the colour version too.

Unless it's only one or two simple ones, I don't use Gimp for labelling. I do it all in Inkscape then export a PNG into Gimp. Don't know if you've used Inkscape? It's about a million times better than Gimp for easy positioning of text, curved labels etc.