August Entry - The Nine Bridges of Atayama

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I finally found time this evening to get a start on this challenge. Incidentally, I misspelled, the mountain is called Akayama (not Ata...) which means Red Mountain. This is an abandoned Tengu Mountain, that has been cursed by evil spirits, however, the daitengu or 'king tengu' of the mountain is trapped in his holy shrine residence at the top of the mountain. Nine bridges need to be crossed to reach the summit and each is guarded by a different evil spirit that must be defeated or tricked to bypass. A spiritual wind encircles the mountain preventing flight, a part of the curse located here.

All the linework is hand-drawn of course, I scanned on my large format scanner and imported to Xara Xtreme. I decided to use my stacked elevations of beveled shapes technique as I felt it would work best to show the trail climbing up the slopes of the mountain. Hand placing the shadows beneath the nine bridges really make them look good, I think.

Tomorrow I will draw and place some buildings and shrines at the near the various bridges, and some conifer trees in the bottom lands and lower part of the slopes. Then I will label this map, create a separate legend and call it done - so I should finish tomorrow.

GP

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