Teldrassil (World of Warcraft) Map

[TaylorH]

Hello, everyone.

I'm not sure how many of the CG members are familiar with World of Warcraft, but I played the popular game for many years; I started when I was 12 and now I'm 21. I no longer play, but the game world is always in my mind. I could spend days and days thinking about the world's regions, flora and fauna. My favourite place to visit in the entire world of Azeroth is Teldrassil. My first character popped into existence in a little shadowy glen (called Shadowglen funnily enough). Teldrassil is a colossal island tree very much taken out of world tree mythology. I wanted to try and impress with something different. Very much inspired by Sarithus' maps, I've decided to take on an ambitious project which sees most of Teldrassil rendered from a perspective view.

As you can see from the image below I've taken some creative liberty. There is debate about how Teldrassil actually looks. Some say it is a vast trunk with a forest ecosystem in the middle, others say its bough would actually be fully developed, but due to the technical limitations of the game is represented as an open trunk. There are many things I would like to do with this map, such as drawing Darnassus in perspective and showing all the little in game features, but these are beyond my current capability and so will probably be represented by symbols. There's just too much to cover. I do however have the main geographical features in place.
(Teldrassil trunk in-game)

Teldrassil in-game trunk silhouette seen from afar


Official top down Teldrassil map (Blizzard)


In-game 'satellite' view of above map showing natural features


So I'd like to present Teldrassil. I spent quite a bit of time on the planning, inking and trying to make it as neat as possible!


Edit: Re scanned better quality


Quite hard to translate top-down into a sort of perspective view, but I think I done a decent job of it.

Stay tuned.

[Sarithus]

Very nice, TaylorH! I know those are the first mountains you've done, I think, and they're looking great. Can't wait to see them inked!

[Falconius]

Your drawing makes far more sense than the in-game model, that's for sure. And indeed the official map. This should be pretty cool.

[TaylorH]

Thanks, Sarithus and Falconius. Stay tuned.

[TaylorH]

Some good progress I think. Happy with how neat this is turning out. My works usually aren't all that "professional" looking, especially with traditional means, but definitely taking my time with this. Added stylized clouds, trunk detail and started outlining the southern most hills which encircle the city of Darnassus. The main thing to say with this is that I realise there's quite a lot of creative liberty being taken for this project. The hills are not representative of the actual game world, and are more akin to the illustrative map, even then they are in roughly different places. It's not really feasible to try and recreate the world as it actually is, so I'm using a blend of the illustrative map, the geographical (satellite) map and my imagination to create this. It's more of a tribute than anything.



Hope you like it.

[J.Edward]

I will agree with the others. It looks good Taylor.
This should be fun to watch develop. The idea is interesting.
I never did get into WoW. So it's new to me.

[TaylorH]

Just a quick question unrelated to the thread, so I didn't want to make a new thread for it:

Since I think I'm going to be working in this pencil and pen style for a while, does CG think it's worth it to invest in a good set of calligraphy/fountain pens with professional ink? I want my blacks to be blacker and a lot sharper too. Would this be the correct equipment to purchase?

[- Max -]

Not sure if that helps but there's a thread about hand-drawn tools here

[J.Edward]

Taylor - here is something else to think about. If you go the traditional art route for producing maps, then you also have to think about your scanner or camera.
Whichever way you would get the image scanned in. As I started working with larger pencil and pen maps and drawings I had to consider getting a larger scanner.
Of course that is due to my need to get my work in a digital form for clients.
Some decisions hinge on whether the work is personal or professional in nature.
If professional, then you want to make sure the ink is archival and color fast.
But then you would also have to consider the type and quality of you paper as well, or whether backed illustration board would be a better choice.

[TaylorH]

Getting there. Not too sure about the clouds. I wanted them to be stylised and abstract but they look a bit odd! Trouble with this is trying to interpret the maps in to a "3D" view.