The World of Heima

[xpian]

Author Shawn Gunn commissioned me to make this map for his upcoming novel (link to novel page:*www.swgunn.com/heima )

I’m a fan of the black and white look. I enjoy the crispness of the lines and the discipline of the aesthetic

As usual, I had a great time drawing the mountains. The process is enjoyable and algorithmic. I just enjoy looking at them as I draw them. I tried to put some extra detail lines on the shady side of the peaks.

The border was a bit of an exploration. I’m getting more complex with borders, but I still don't want them to overwhelm the map itself. I think it works in this map, but I expect my next iteration will be more thematically unified.

I used a new technique on the forests, and I like the way they came out. This involved drawing around ten trees and then cloning and re-arranging them many times to form the border of the forest, overlapping them tree-by-tree and cleaning up the results by hand. It’s one of the few parts of this map that involves repeating bits of art instead of drawing by hand. Yes, the trees look a little "large" compared to the mountains, but it's not a satellite view, after all. Maps are symbolic, and these features, especially in a fantasy/medieval map, are meant to convey the most important and relevant information to the viewer.

If you look carefully, you’ll see where I’ve not only snuck the rivers under the tree tops, but also slipped them behind mountain peaks in a way I hope sells the illusion of the rivers lying on the landscape and carving into it.

When I have a little more time I may do a nice color wash version of the map, putting some tones in behind the hard black lines.

As is usual for me, the hand-drawn features are all done in ProCreate on an iPad using an Adonis Jot Touch stylus. Text and some minor layer styles are done in Photoshop.

[Wingshaw]

Nice job, xpian. This is a very good map. For me, the highlights are the Parrmarch (I assume it is a desert?), the coastal ripples, and, of course, those are some fantastic mountains. I also like the border: it looks a bit like the patterns on woven grass objects from some native American, South East Asian or Oceanic culture.

If asked to give a critique, I would have to say the scale of the trees to mountains does bother me, just a little bit, and the extremely high contrast of the tree trunks. In my opinion, I think a little bit of pale shadowing around the mountains may also have been good.

...But I don't want to sound too negative. This really is very good. Is the title a font or your own handwriting/drawing? And, for that matter, what font have you used for the labels? I like it.

THW

[arsheesh]

I love those mountains!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[xpian]

@arsheesh - Thanks!

@TheHoarseWhisperer - Thank you.

Yes, Parrmarch is meant to be desert. :-)

The scale of the trees does bother me a little as well, which is probably why I felt the need to preemptively defend it in the text above. They are a little large, the trunks a little dark, and they're a bit more...dimensional...than the mountains around them. The most gray pixels in the map are in the forest, with little other than black and white elsewhere. I suppose I liked the forest enough to keep it, for what it was, and didn't want to have to re-draw the whole thing. Hopefully only the really cartographically sharp people will notice. ;-)

The fonts: Historical, JSL Ancient Italic, Carmilla (which I did some hand-modification to for the title), and HamletOrNot

[Sapiento]

Very, very good! I love the mountains.

[Ilanthar]

I'm not fond of the landshape, but a very good map!

[xpian]

@Ilanthar - The basic shape of the continent and the shape of the terrain regions was provided in a sketch by the client. I influenced it a little bit, by adding little coastal islands, making the mountains range around somewhat, etc.