Midnight/MU scenario map - The Brave

[Tigon]

This is my first WIP here and there's been much humming and hawing about the style to go with but I've decided upon a hand-drawn style for this.

Background:
Midnight/MU is an online turn-based war/strategy game based on the Lords of Midnight game from Mike Singleton, originally based on the ZX Spectrum. The M/MU community have created more scenarios over the last few years for us lovers of the originals (LoM and the sequel Doomdark's Revenge) and this is going to be the map initially available to players of the latest scenario: The Brave by Ralph Wijnmaalen (aka Brandal The Ur).

The actual map is done, the locations all set and named, lords created and a history set up. What I've done is taken the data (housed in an Access database I created for my own couple of scenarios) and generated the map as produced by the game engine. What we like to do is create a more artistic map, hiding some of the actual detail (like where lords start and such). Anyway, that map is now acting as the template for the "cover art" map. For a first WIP posting I suppose it's somewhat ironic that instead of having a rough idea and fleshing it out I've got the actual map and have to create something more artistic than actual representation.

So, here is what I've got so far:


The southern lands have yet to get their mountains and forests added. I've also got hills to add and then I'll be putting in some details such as citadels, henges, lakes (which a small, single location features). Ralph has chosen to use on the original terrain features so there are no rivers/seas or swamps. I may well post up the actual map so that you can compare what I'm doing to the actual lay-of-the-land as it will be in-game. However, doing that just now might be a bit too much of a spoiler for Ralph.

Oh, the final image will probably ½ the size of the current... possibly.

Oh, and also, the land is surrounded by the "Frozen Wastes" (on all sides) so I'll definitely be needing a border come the final release...

Any and all suggestions welcome. Thankyouverymuch.