January 2016 Challenge: Thurian Age

[J.Edward]

The Thurian Age
of Kull of Atlantis
From Robert E. Howard's Kull stories

I started this on January 9th and was intending to do a wip thread but I got a bunch of work right then and didn't have time to do wip posts.
So I'm pretty much jumping in at the end of the process. I started with a world map and used Gprojector to map it on a globe.
Then redrew the whole thing like this. I was trying for a more extreme version of what I'd done in my experiment thread.
This style will need some work and tweaking to deal with all the curve and distortion in terrain as it goes around the globe but generally I like how it worked out.
I've wanted to do a map like this for awhile.

I chose the Thurian Age just because I always liked the Kull stories. And there isn't a very compelling map of it to date.
The Kirk map is nice but it's wrong and doesn't really capture the real scale of things.
My map is wrong in some ways too.
Part of that is due to Howard never having made a map and also because Howard changed his mind and changed events some here and there.

My map is also non canonical because I added stuff not in the stories.
The map is pretty spartan with only the places listed in the Kull stories.
Almost no cities for kingdoms that are said to be so old.
Plus, with this map, my premise was that it was a map made based on secret documents and diagrams found in the archives of an old temple of Set.
So I added some prehuman cities and some lost land locations, some serpent men and elder cities. Just to make it interesting.
Fanatical REH fans will likely hate the map. That's okay.

I also thought if people wanted to roleplay the thurian age this might give them some other locations to work with.
Anyway, this is the finished piece, for the sake of the challenge. If time permits, I may add a border and some other features.
I was also trying to make it look like an old pulpish style map. How successful I was is debatable.

### Winner ###

[Domino44]

This looks incredible so far! I'm looking forward to seeing it develop.

[xpian]

This is very, very impressive. I don't think I've ever seen anyone attempt the combination of globe view with hand-drawn isometric style to this extent before. And it's amazing that you've managed to get so much done so quickly.

[Vhey]

Nice. I like how you gave the land mass "relief" as the approached the horizon.

[Warlin]

Last week i was wondering what J. can do ? It has been a while he has not post comment. Now, i know : he was making a map i only was dreaming to make. It's awesome . Just a bug that worries me : at the center place of your map i expected to see a top-down view. By the way, it's just 'faire la fine bouche ' .

[- Max -]

Excellent J. !

[Sapiento]

Excellent J. !

What Max said.

[ChickPea]

This is absolutely amazing!

[timallen]

Wow! This is really great. I love that its in black and white.

[J.Edward]

This looks incredible so far! I'm looking forward to seeing it develop.

Thanks Domino. I'm not sure what more I'll do and what time I'll have but I'll do some more if I can.

This is very, very impressive. I don't think I've ever seen anyone attempt the combination of globe view with hand-drawn isometric style to this extent before. And it's amazing that you've managed to get so much done so quickly.

Thanks xpian. I was a bit surprised myself. I thought it was going to take a lot longer as well.
There are still some anomalies but as it was a first attempt I can accept them as part of the learning curve.

Nice. I like how you gave the land mass "relief" as the approached the horizon.

Thanks Vhey. That was part of the original thought that made me want to do this.

Last week i was wondering what J. can do ? It has been a while he has not post comment. Now, i know : he was making a map i only was dreaming to make. It's awesome . Just a bug that worries me : at the center place of your map i expected to see a top-down view. By the way, it's just 'faire la fine bouche ' .

Thanks Warlin. Yeah, this and work and few other maps have had me quite busy this month.
The whole center issue is something I did think about while doing this. I tried a few variations but wasn't thrilled with them.
It was the the intent to have it truly be perspective all the way around and hence have top down view near the center.
Perhaps as I get a better handle on this technique I'll be able to work that out in the future.

Excellent J. !

Thank you Max

What Max said.

And thanks as well Sap

This is absolutely amazing!

Thank you ChickPea

Wow! This is really great. I love that its in black and white.

Thanks Tim. I was going to do it as true black and white or at least greyscale, and I may still add a version like that, but it's just too hard for me to not add some off-white or cream color in there with some warm greys.