Speed Mapping for good quality - Advice requested

[Vigilus]

Hi, You may have seen my globe game project Verrago: The Globe Game. I've a lot to do still, making 1156 cards for the game. I'm doing the artwork. So, rapidly producing quality is my new artistic focus.

Before I throw myself to the wolves of my ambition, I figured I'd ask the community for tips and tricks for speed mapping.

Here is a basic map I produced yesterday in 3.5 hours from blank page and no concept to "finished" product, using pen and pencil.

I plan on using computer programs to enhance my speed, mainly Photoshop.

First, is 3.5 hours for this LOD good?

Any comments and suggestions are welcome!
IMG_2563.JPG

[Adfor]

Hi, You may have seen my globe game project Verrago: The Globe Game. I've a lot to do still, making 1156 cards for the game. I'm doing the artwork. So, rapidly producing quality is my new artistic focus.

Before I throw myself to the wolves of my ambition, I figured I'd ask the community for tips and tricks for speed mapping.

Here is a basic map I produced yesterday in 3.5 hours from blank page and no concept to "finished" product, using pen and pencil.

I plan on using computer programs to enhance my speed, mainly Photoshop.

First, is 3.5 hours for this LOD good?

Any comments and suggestions are welcome!
IMG_2563.JPG

It looks great for 3.5 hours, and with color to boot! I'm pursuing the same type of goal, and one of the big things that has saved me a ton of time is to cut the pencil all together. I normally put in pencil lines before I put any pen to paper, but I've recently been trying to ride the risk train and just start with pen from the beginning.

I don't know how your method started, but another thing I've found is finding techniques that take very little time to lay out, with a high impact type of style, also keeping a consistency among methods and color can really speed things along, too.

I hope this helps, I've very much so admired your work.

Cheers!

IR

[Tiana]

Yes, it's great for that length of time spent with traditional art.

My advice for fast digital work is to pass on Photoshop as your primary program, which you can hack into a mapping program, and just make assets that you can plug into a mapping specific program like Other World Mapper, which can hold sets of pre-colored assets and is designed to assemble maps. Programs like these will be the ultimate "digital quick map". Another thing it can do that might speed up the production of over a thousand cards is export to tiles. So if you set the grid to the card size you could make a sheet of cards and automatically cut them up in the export. There are others that are well loved like Wonderdraft, I haven't tried that one myself, but I assume it's similar.

But yeah, for a quick traditional sketch this looks good.

[Vigilus]

Thanks for the help!

The only pencil I'm using in this is colored pencil, no pencil pre-sketch. I've been practicing with pen for a while, I took a class on realism and it's a great confidence builder for going straight to pen. Pen also scans in so much better, so it's just gotta be pen!

I need to develop my personal style more in this area for sure.

I plan to use a mapping program, that'll be fun. Unique mountains are huge for map style, so I'm going to experiment a lot there (like everyone else!).

Thanks for the support!

[DrWho42]

i love the organic look of it so far!

[JoshStolarz]

In my opinion the key to speed is to force yourself to do a loose, rough sketch to figure out the placement of everything. It adds a step but allows you to make big decisions more quickly, so I feel it actually ends up saving time when done right. Going into your final piece right away is a good way to slow yourself down when you realize you have a problem in the foundation.

[Kisachik the Wanderer]

Hi Vigilus. Since you drew this for practice, as you said you had no concept, this is 3.5 hours used well. You also said you want to produce quality rapidly. But quality requires effort. Everyday focused, mindful practice. Your colouring technique needs a lot of work. I see you're using coloured pencil here, which doesn't seem like a difficult medium but it's easy to produce streaky, flat, boring patches of colour with them.

If you want to save time, do the colouring digitally after scanning your pen lines. But if you really want to develop an interesting style traditionally, then there is no way around putting in the time. Join the forum's monthly challenges, they give inspiration for more practice.