*** March/April Challenge VOTING - Ink blots ***

It's that time again to place your votes for our Lite challenge entries.

The challenge this time was to use the supplied image of "Ink blots" to create a map of some sort.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...1&d=1331878742

We have 8 entries so that allows us to have 1 vote each, choose wisely. Although there can be only one winner remember to give reputation to all entries you enjoyed so they can feel your appreciation.

The winner will receive a fancy silver lite compass award.

The thumbnails are here for your viewing pleasure:

March/April Lite Challenge Thumbs

Poll closes in 5 days. Good fortune to everyone who entered!

I have to admit this month's lite challenge has made voting very hard for me - all the entries are fascinating, interesting, different and well-made. They all have something to recommend them. I'd write up a more detailed review of all the works, but I'll keep that for later. So, for now, congratulations to all the participants!

EDIT: OK, it's later. I, too, voted for Octopod's caves. All the maps had something to recommend them, but to my mind the caves made the best use of the blots to create a map that is both a bit fantastic and eminently plausible. The blots become an inherent part of the map, they fit in perfectly and yet a person looking at the map on its own would never see them. Also, the trees on top were really cool and it felt like a long time since I'd seen a nice fantasy map drawn side-on.

Gave my vote to the legendary waterfalls. It´s a great idea and stirs a kind of "fear" in me. Those holes are vast and lead down to unknown depths. The pastel tones and rough strokes give the things a mysterious aura. In short I like it ;)

All great entries - I love the diversity. I voted for Waldronate. Getting such beautiful mountains in FT / Wilbur from a given silhouette (rather than a random generation), is just incredible. A tutorial would be nice too :)

:: Edit :: I've just seen you've written a tutorial! YAY! Thanks Joe!

erm what happens in.....Jockich? :)

Yeah this was a tough one. There were at least two entries that I wanted to vote for. In the end I went with Troedel's hand drawn map which was very nice. Great job everyone though.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Voting, especially where we can only give 1 vote, is always tough. My 3 favorites are Bridges over Troubled Air, Lostwater Caves, and Valma Islands, but lots of goodness in the others as well.

What can I say. I love fantasy style maps. One vote is tough. Some the these maps were really good and way outside the box! Caves, sky-top bridges, lost Starships... Great job to all. I guess you all passed the "Ink blot" test ;)

-RPGMM

Tough one! It was a bit of a tie between Bogie's and Octopod's, but I went with the latter in the end.
Props to all the contestants! :D

I agree with the rest - I was bummed to only be able to vote for one of them. In the end after I had reasoned over each of them I let my gut decide and went with the one that gave me the most interesting feeling inside.

What follows is just my thoughts as I tried to whittle them down so I could vote for one. It is just my opinions which don't matter a hill of beans in most cases. Like all of you I am still learning so if you listen to me and end up being terrible at this well, you get what you pay for :)


Mar-April Entry SAT-RECON CZAKO ISLANDS by Bogie: I was impressed by what was done just using a few layers and overlapping them. It does look very much like a satellite image. The Ocean water is a tad boring but around the islands and the islands themselves look very cool. Personally, I like to see a little more handwork in the art but this is a nice image. Keep up the good work.

March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Wreck of the ISS Titanic by Fury: What a cool idea. Thank goodness for the inset though because it was a little hard to see the ship in the larger picture until I knew what it was shaped like (not unusual for a crash site I suppose). For me I just felt like the provided shapes were not capitalized on as much as with some of the other entries.


March/April 2012 Entry - Ocean's End: The Legendary Waterfalls by Inriconus: I really like the feel of this, the brush strokes and mistyness of it all are just great. I could drop this as a location in my RPG world and just go with it. There is a story to be found here and it appealed. Beautiful yet eerie. What creatures ply these waters and what happens if you go over the edge of one of those holes? I had to vote for this one.


March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Ritradenix's Lair by Joshua: Would have liked to seen it completed as it has potential. Oh well, it happens, hope to see you in the next one.


March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Lostwater Caves by octopod: Another great entry. This one could have received my vote but I would have liked to zoom in on it more and seen more variety in the soil layers. All in all however this was a fantastic job.


March/April Lite Challenge Entry - Bridges Over Troubled Air by TheBigBlueFrog: I love the viewpoint of this one and it looks fantastic. I almost voted for this one because it kind of gives you vertigo but I would have liked more detail on the land areas. As it is they are just grassy looking. I was wondering why would there be bridges between plain patches of grass? Love the perspective and the faded out planet below though. Just excellent work, I really hope we see more from you in the future as well.


March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Valma Islands by Troedel: This was another excellent entry. It's the basic fantasy map and covers the spirit of what we do here everyday. I could see this in a children's book which means it's a great quality map. I think if some of the other out of the box takes on the Ink blots hadn't come out quite so well this would have taken it.


March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: CSU Johnsondale's New Found Lands by waldronate: Obviously, way cool mountain ranges. I don't know how to get much myself from Wilber so I'm impressed. The water is kind of boring to me but it does look like a lot of the atlas maps you find out there. I think I would have liked to have seen this developed a bit more with locations and stuff. It does make me want to go revisit Wilber again and see if I can figure out how to make mountains like that.

Wonderful job everyone, you make these challenges a blast to watch and be a part of. Congratulations to whoever wins this round.

Hard choice. I think it should be a tie between two of them. I ended up voting for Octopod's map, it is just a neat idea and gives a sense of wonder. A VERY close second would be Troedel's map, I love painted and hand drawn maps. I had to choose one though and I thought both had great features, so it was more of a coin toss between the two.