WIP - Floating Isles

[Sirith]

First, awesome idea, the floating islands bit, it's something I've been wanting to fiddle with as well. And the background sounds like a wonderful adventure rich setting. Second, the sheer size and scope of the map. Poster-sized and stuff. I like. Especially it being hand drawn completely.

Then finally, I like the inked version quite a lot already. Though the pdf is kinda pixelized at 100%, you can see a lot of detail everywhere, but not so much it clutters everything.

I'm eager to see what it will end up like

[Arthnek]

Here is the final map as a digital file.

This was hand drawn at 24" x 32" on heavy parchment in ink. Then I used simple watercolors to color the map.

Finally I scanned it in on an oversize scanner and ran it through a simple filter to smooth some of the transitions in the watercolor to make it look a little more "finished".



This was largely a learning experience in the arena of painting with watercolors but I did learn a great deal. Next map will be smoother. Ultimately I'll finish a key seperately and drop it into the corner as a final piece.

[Arthnek]

Here is a tighter detail of the lower left corner. Working in such a large size gives some flexability in how tight I can zoom or how far out I can pan using the same piece.

Still I could improve this by using white more efficiently around the lettering, improving the quality of the lettering by going to a caligraphy pen, etc...which I plan to use for the next go around.



This was a fun project and I'm looking forward to the next piece.

[Sirith]

Wow . There is definitely room for improvement with your use of watercolours, but it's a very hard medium to master, and this looks pretty good! It's amazing how some relatively simple colouring can bring such a map to life .