Thread: Monks writing room - WIP

Hello,
I'm trying to develop a floor plan for a writing room and I'm having a spot of trouble, namely with the furniture, here is an image of the state I am in.

What I'm looking for is a tutorial or an example on how to draw furniture from a top-down perspective, does anyone have any suggestions?

To me, it just seems that the pulpits were made with a ruler, which would make sense for a floor plan. My question is how big is the monastery? It would seem that a scriptorium would be larger if there are more monks present, or is this more of a private scriptorium for monks of a higher order?

What a fun project. I really enjoy drawing floor plans.

The best way to see what people that do drafting for a living use would be to do a search for the 3 words: drafting furniture blocks. This will bring up some that are free downloadable blocks in CAD format, which you may not be able to use, depending on what file formats you have access to. But, there are some images of the top view on some of the pages I just looked at, which would help you get an idea of what other people use.

That said, there is no rule that I know of that furniture has to look an exact certain way, but of course you want it recognizable as a sofa, chair, etc.

I also tried using the word template to search, and it brings up some useful information, but the majority was for the plastic templates you could buy to draw outlines of furniture on paper. Which I don't believe would be any help to you.

When I make floor plans, and I already have the piece of furniture, I try & make it the real world size, and what the piece of furniture would really look like if looked down upon.

When it comes to showing that a drawer exists in a desk, or the way a door swings, there are basic "rules" that are followed. Not sure that you would be going into that much detail though.

Most importantly, **Check the creator's/owner's permissions for anything you download or copy to make sure that your type of use is permitted.**

Good luck to you. It looks great so far.

To make scribbly lines, try playing with the scatter jitter settings in Photoshop.

P.S. Hope you don't mind, I merged the other thread you started with this one as they seem to concern questions about the same map.

About drawing the top down furniture, do you have an example of what you want it to look like? Are you looking for something which is forced perspective or just a plain top down view?

Originally Posted by Subcreator

To me, it just seems that the pulpits were made with a ruler, which would make sense for a floor plan. My question is how big is the monastery? It would seem that a scriptorium would be larger if there are more monks present, or is this more of a private scriptorium for monks of a higher order?

In all honesty the map is a test made for a couple of friends who is into rpg-writing and where curious on how much of a room description they could push into a map instead. At the moment there are three more things that I plan on including in the map, that is monks with a small moon/sun next to them (to show when they are in the room), some more furniture to show what kind of a room it is (book-press, stuff like that) and a legend.

So, to answer your question regarding the size of the monastery, I have no idea , I got a description of the scriptorium and thats it.

Originally Posted by Grits

The best way to see what people that do drafting for a living use would be to do a search for the 3 words: drafting furniture blocks. This will bring up some that are free downloadable blocks in CAD format, which you may not be able to use, depending on what file formats you have access to. But, there are some images of the top view on some of the pages I just looked at, which would help you get an idea of what other people use.

I have no problem using CAD drawings, my job is basically the development similar applications. The problem with those drawings are that they do not really conform to the aged look I'm trying to get. I want it to look like its an old map basically and the super straight lines does not really help me unfortunately

Originally Posted by Grits

When it comes to showing that a drawer exists in a desk, or the way a door swings, there are basic "rules" that are followed. Not sure that you would be going into that much detail though.

Pleas do, give me a couple of pointers, I'm not against using common techniques as long as I can make them look old

Originally Posted by Grits

Good luck to you. It looks great so far.

Thank you and thank you for the massive post, brilliant

Originally Posted by ravells

To make scribbly lines, try playing with the scatter jitter settings in Photoshop.

Thanks, I will try that

Originally Posted by ravells

P.S. Hope you don't mind, I merged the other thread you started with this one as they seem to concern questions about the same map.

Certainly not, It was a mistake on my part that I realized a bit to late yesterday (I missed the new thread or did not reload the page so I thought it was lost and when I saw that there where two threads they had already been separately answered).

Originally Posted by ravells

About drawing the top down furniture, do you have an example of what you want it to look like? Are you looking for something which is forced perspective or just a plain top down view?

Specifically I'm looking for something that have three requirements in descending order of importance (the first is most important), the first is that it should be as intuitive as possible what the furniture is, the second is that it should be correct size wise and lastly it should not clash stylistically with what I have got.

In my mind a plain top-down view would follow that and I'm open to suggestions on the contrary

Have you tried the Dunjinni forums? They have a lot of top down symbols there. Might give you some ideas.

Originally Posted by ravells

Have you tried the Dunjinni forums? They have a lot of top down symbols there. Might give you some ideas.

That seems to have hit the spot, I found a couple of good tables that I think highlights the problem. There is basically nothing wrong with the design of the thing, but rather that it looks too clean. I will try to make a thing thats a bit more worn on the way home.

If that does not work then I downloaded this article that discusses architectural drawings from the middle ages, and I shall see if I can do something from that. I'l try to post something this evening...