Mar/April 2016 Light Mapping Challenge: Japanese Fort Map Scale

[Tonnichiwa]

Hello everyone. I really wanted to enter this challenge but my first idea didn't pan out but I've been practicing my drawing and I've come up with this. I stayed up all night doing it. It is all drawn on my Wacom, no brushes, no line smoothing. Just me trying to eyeball it. I know it isn't the greatest but I have got to at least try. Since I'm not quite good at drawing circles yet I thought I would try a map scale instead.

This is the first part.

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[Tonnichiwa]

And this is the second part. I know it needs improvement but it is what I have so far.

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[Josiah VE]

Well, for being someone who is 'bad' at drawing, this is pretty good! I don't know that I could do something like this.. Did you just come up with this off the top of your head or did you work off something?

I'm not sure how this is going to be a scale.. but I'm sure it will become clear as it advances.

[Bogie]

Very nice. I'm curious, in these buildings, is the stone base a solid pile of stones or are there rooms inside?

[ThomasR]

For the circles, nobody's really good at drawing them ... except maybe math teachers. Use a guide, draw large and shrink, it does the trick, that's how I did the circles on my compass.

And I'm really curious where you're headed with this.

[Chashio]

You know, there's a tool for drawing circles it's even called a drawing compass. Very handy for compass roses, circular map projections, and planning out globes on paper. Of course, I know you're doing this digitally and working on drawing skills by eye but there are ways to make it easier.
I like your scale though, Tonnichiwa, and I'm looking forward to see how you finish it.

[Tonnichiwa]

@Josiah VE: I used to live in japan so I was trying to go off of memory of what a small guard tower looked like.But I haven't been there since 1988 So all of that is from my head. And believe it or not, two weeks ago I would not have been able to draw that at all. That is just from constant practice and listening to what the video's I've been watching online have had to say. I particularly watched the fundamentals videos from Draw with Jazza to get an idea for the basics of drawing. Though in this case I think I got a little ahead of myself. I completely drew the building on top of the rock wall wrong. So when I start feeling better I will probably actually have to go off of someone elses photograph of a real Japanese guard tower.

@Bogie it depends on the era the castle was built in and actually who built it. I've been to some sites in japan where all that were left were the ruins of some of the old castles and the base was the only thing left. What they are is a large pile of earth, with rocks around the outside. In later history, some castle builders took to putting hallways in those bases and I believe in a reconstruction of a castle after World War 2 they put rooms in them too, but I am not exactly sure how accurate the rooms in the base would be as far as how they were truly built.

Well, I'll tell you all how I was going to make this into a scale. You see, in earlier versions of these castles, they didn't always put that beautiful swept roof design you see on so many of the castles these days. If you look at some of the very early paintings in the day, they would make these castles, and put up a large wooden fence at the top instead. Especially if the tower were not intended to be used over a span of many years. So I planned on putting that fence at the top instead of the large swept roof, and use the fence posts as guides to distance.

[Tonnichiwa]

Ok, since I have no idea how to color something in photoshop I guess this map scale will have to be for a black and white map. Anyway, I'm gonna call this one done.

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