November 2007 Entry: Superstition Valley
No sense waiting for this next challenge. At first thought, an Old West map and style doesn't evoke digital graphics in my thinking. So I thought I'd try a complete 180 degrees for me and create a completely hand-drawn map, scanned and colored in Xara or Photoshop/GIMP (haven't decided.)
Setting: Superstition Valley, Arizona Territory (fantasy location), located along the border of Old Mexico, along the Dos Diablos River and the Sangra Madre Mountains. The region is known for mining - gold, silver, copper, even borax and other chemical mineral deposits. There are mining camps and mining towns, the former being mostly tents, the latter having a stamper and smelting operation.
The Red Mountain Apache tribal nation range throughout the Sangra Madre mountains and pose a persistant threat to the mining communities of Superstition Valley. Also the hacienda of Don Ernesto Reyes, former regional Mexican governor, prior to its seizure by the US government lies in the southern upper valleys of the Sangra Madre and maintain a band of "constabularios" who work as partisans/outlaws and raid the invader miners of the valley.
The railroad follows the Santa Domingo Trail, though the rich silver deposits at the Constellation Mine at Orion Hill are bring a railway spur into the valley, though it is far from complete. A village of Chinese laborers are building the tracks.
The communities of the Superstition Valley include: Orion Hill a wealthy silver town along the Dos Diablos River, Gila Gulch - a mining camp for placer gold on the San Paulo Wash, Fort Joachim - home of E Troop 3rd US Cavalry, and an hispanic mission at San Pedro. There even is a ghost town already, at Haleyville not far from Gila Gulch.
Oh and legend has it that the Lost Vaquero Mine lies somewhere in the wilds of the Sangra Madres, a King's ransom in gold, but is both cursed and hidden.
WIP - more of a doodle, I need to find a finer pen, and this is a GIF not a PNG, like I said, just a doodle so far...
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