Schönen Gruß aus dem Steigerwald!Originally Posted by Schwarzkreuz
Let's start with the last question. It's absolutely necessary that we have a well-defined style. We have a project group of three people. Each of us makes maps for our products. Things would not look good if each just made his own map willy nilly as his fancy struck him. So, we have set down some pretty strict standards that each has to adhere to in all project maps. That notwithstanding, there still is a bit of personality in all of the maps.
If I were to post 15 maps, five from each of us, and tell you who did each one, I think I could post 100 more maps without names and quite a number of people here could tell you accurately who did most of them, simply because those individual elements of personality are there.
As to how we developed our own ideas, what our inspiration was, etc., ...
I can speak certainly only for myself, but discussion with my two colleagues leave me convinced that their answers would be similar, in Trevor Cooke's case relating to what he sees in his native Scotland and in Carl Nielsen's case to what he saw while in military service in German Badinia (Baden) and later in civilian work in Thailand.
I spend most of my days in beautiful Northern Bavarian Franconia (Franken), where traces of the real middle ages are everywhere. I also like to travel through Thuringia, parts of Hesse, Wurttemberian Franconia, Badinian Franconia and Swabia (Schwaben). What I see there is a much more excellent picture of a fantasy RPG setting than I've ever found in drawings in the pages of a fantasy RPG book. So, I try to duplicate the real thing from days of yore and then add magic and monsters to it.
If you're interested in seeing how that's translated in our maps, go here:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...p?albumid=3237
and here:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...p?albumid=3513
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