Temple Street to the Grand Temple - a hand-drawn map fragment

[kestrelgrey]

Sounds reasonable, and interesting. Sounds like there's a history to the city that maybe isn't entirely pleasant? borders are hard, especially for such a nice hand drawn map - don't want to lose the map itself in the border! The handwritten font lends a nice touch to the map, and keeps the focus on the building shapes. The stain is a little dark, and it looks 'heavy' enough to have made the ink run. I wonder if perhaps the "border" you have now is just too wide? Perhaps a thin border that mimics the alternating black and white scale markers would look good if it was in the same hand drawn style (maybe at a reduced opacity, too). Sorry I don't have an example of what I'm talking about! But overall, this is looking great.

[Wirelizard]

Sounds reasonable, and interesting. Sounds like there's a history to the city that maybe isn't entirely pleasant?

I haven't really gotten that far into the history of the notional city this map is from - the place doesn't even have a name yet - but having a straight, wide ceremonial road rammed through an old neighbourhood is par for the course for any city, anywhere and anywhen, really.

Ran with your thoughts for a border, starting with a hand-drawn fragment and a few corner ornaments that I photographed, cleaned up in GIMP, further edited in Inkscape, then re-imported as a layer into GIMP. Having the elements in Inkscape means I can re-use and re-size things easily for future maps of this type.

Cut a few slivers off the edges, too, but the border is (deliberately) not too close a fit. Also toned down the stains and tried a different blend mode for the text, compass rose and border, which blends them in further with the building outlines and the parchment effect in the background.



I've also got another, smaller map fragment that I sketched this evening and will probably run through the same process in the next few days.

As backstory, I'm thinking that these are the working maps of the City Watch or city government, which explains both the block-by-block detail and the rather utilitarian finish - they're working maps of an urban area, not display maps on a wall somewhere.

Edit to add, the handwriting font is Asphyxiate via Dafont. I discovered it a few years ago, and it's become my go-to font for "ordinary" hand lettering; neat enough to be read but still obviously handwritten. (Dafont, if you haven't already discovered it, is an absolute treasure trove of great fonts, one of the best organized and most functional free font sites out there. If you're a bit of a font junkie (like, er, me...) prepare to spend more time there than you'd planned...)

[Wirelizard]

I've got another, smaller map fragment in progress. Ink on paper, photographed, into GIMP, the usual workflow so far.

This one is centred around "the Stableyard", which is the working headquarters and stables for the City Watch. No text or ornaments yet, but the building outlines are basically cleaned up and done.

The roughly triangular building with the hexagonal tower is the Stableyard; the open area in front of it (above it, on this map) is Watchman's Yard; the rest is as-yet unnamed but I have vague identities in mind for the E-shaped building to the left of the Stableyard and the one with two interior courts and two round towers below that one.



I really must come up with a name for this city...