May/June 2016 Lite Challenge: Orihlam

[jshoer]

Ever since reading the "On the Map" with Alyssa Faden, I knew I had to get my hands on one of these Copic Multiliner pens. Just a week ago I grabbed a .03, so I had the smallest pen I own sitting on my table burning to be used. This challenge came along perfectly timed.

Reading the description for this challenge, I immediately knew how I wanted to place certain elements. I really want to make it look like you just turned over the title page of a book. The lower-left border is going to be the illustration - an illustration, of course, of the impressive wizard's tower! I also had a mountain style in mind right away, wanted to draw the active volcano in a certain way, and had the idea to fill the crater with a lake. Speaking of the crater, a 100 mile diameter crater is almost the size of the Chicxulub impact structure - the dinosaur-killing meteor - so right away, I knew that this crater had to be a complex impact structure with an inner ring, which become islands in my lake, and I know it has to be old for there to still be civilization on this world. Anyway, that gave me the excuse to be the first to flood the crater and put the wizard's tower off-center!

Crummy photo of tiny linework follows.

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IMG_7965.JPG

This is kind of fantastic, because I know exactly where I'm going with this and now that some of the skeletal elements are in place, I think I can get there. I even think I can do it before the deadline!

[Josiah VE]

Nice start!

Looking forward to seeing more!

[Bogie]

Welcome to the challenge, very nice start. I like the lake in the crater / inner ring of islands idea. Not to be the River Police, but how does a river flow into one side of the crater and out of the other? I suppose it is possible, but it needs something more to make it look right.

[jshoer]

Bogie: It's a really old crater, so the walls are uneven. The river went into the crater, filled it up, and kept filling until one part of the lake overflowed its banks.

Now, without further ado:

WIZARD.

TOWER.

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IMG_4990.JPG

[Josiah VE]

All these people going so fast!

Looks awesome, that tower is so cool!

[Bogie]

Yeah, that could work. The tower is wicked nice!

[tilt]

really like that - that new pen is working out for you ... love the tower, always nice with a main element to draw the eye

[jshoer]

Bogie, if I couldn't just read that you're from Maine in the sidebar I would have guessed that immediately. Glad my rationale for the crater sounds reasonable. Before you said you thought it might need something else to get that across, any ideas?

Thanks tilt, this pen is ridiculous! I went a bit crazy with hatching between last post and now, as you can see. I'm kinda surprised at how well that tower came out, I was afraid it would come out too geometric-looking, but all the little hash lines give it just the right amount of texture. Thanks, new pen!

By now, all the major elements of the map are blocked out. I'm waffling a little bit on how to represent the cities, but you can see where they'll go by the blank spaces in the roads. I also still have details to do in the mountains. I plan to put all the labels in digitally. Oh, by the way, the scale is 1" = 100 miles, and the zigzags on the border happen to be 1" peak-to-peak.

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IMG_4992.JPG

[Bogie]

Bogie, if I couldn't just read that you're from Maine in the sidebar I would have guessed that immediately. Glad my rationale for the crater sounds reasonable. Before you said you thought it might need something else to get that across, any ideas?

Must have been my wicked Mainah accent that gave me away.

The easiest way the river could flow like that is if the crater impacted on a slope, with one side higher elevation than the other. Since your mountains are on the same side as the river flowing into the crater, it makes perfect sense. I am not sure how to depict that in a line drawing though. Maybe some foothills between the mountain and the crater, and if placed correctly would even show why the river diverts into the narrow pass instead of going around the crater.

[jshoer]

Ayup, foothill placement is an excellent idea! Thanks.