May/June 2016 Lite Mapping Challenge: Here Is Your Commission. a Map for a Book.

[Bogie]

May/June 2016 Lite Mapping Challenge: Here Is Your Commission, a Map for a Book.

This time the challenge is for you to make a map as if you had been hired by an author who needs a map for her book. I will give you the specifics as if the author had given them.
Your map must comply with the specs, or you had better have a good reason why they don't.
Use your imagination. Use your skills. Have some fun. Earn 500 silver pieces,,, OK, 1 silver compass. Still worth it!

For my new book "The Old Mage Finds a New Love" I need a map of a small country. It should cover an area about 500 miles E-W by 700 miles N-S. Make the whole map so it will fit on an 8" x 11" page and it should have a nice border around the map with a legend that provides some details about the map.
There should be a N-S mountain range that is about 400 miles long and 150 miles from the East side of the map. In the middle of the mountain range there should be an active volcano. To the west of the range should be a mix of plains, forests, hills, and lakes with 3 small isolated mountains and 1 large asteroid crater that is about 100 miles in diameter.
There must be 2 medium and 1 large cities east of the mountain range and 5 medium sized cities west of the range. You can place as many towns and villages as you like, just don't over crowd the map with them. There will be an impressive wizards tower in the crater, and a dungeon entrance near the volcano. I would like one or two nice illustrations on the map so it will catch the eye if someone is just flipping pages. ( You don't have to draw them yourself, if you are unable to then stock art will be fine as long as it fits the map)
I need the map by June 14th, it MUST be completed by that deadline.

The Challenge will run until the 14th of June (more or less) and then there will be 3 days of voting. Someone is going to win a Shiny Silver Compass.

As usual, title your threads: " May/June 2016 Lite Challenge: << your title here >> "

Don't forget to put the hashtag: ### Latest WIP ### in front of all WIP pictures, and especially in front of your final map.
And remember, if you put more than one image on the same post, only one of them gets picked up.

Quick rules reminder: The Lite Challenge is open to anyone who has not already won 3 Silver compasses, 1 Gold Compass, or been selected as a featured Cartographer's Choice Map.
Also, the map has to be started after the first day of the challenge, no reusing older maps even if they were not finished.

[ChickPea]

This is a fantastic challenge! I can't wait to see everyone's interpretation of it. Despite the fairly precise criteria, I just know we'll end up with some widely disparate maps.

[jshoer]

This sounds fun, and I have a few ideas already. I'm in!

Is Bogie going to show up on everyone's WIP thread making change requests?

[ChickPea]

This sounds fun, and I have a few ideas already. I'm in!

Is Bogie going to show up on everyone's WIP thread making change requests?

Hahaha, yeah, the real challenge starts when he drops by two days before the deadline and demands you change everything!

[Josiah VE]

Now THIS is an interesting challenge. Hopefully I'll get to doing it.

It will be SO interesting to see all the different versions of it, and good practice for those who haven't done a commission too.

LOL "Old Mage Finds a New Love" How'd you come up with that?

[ladiestorm]

May I pose a question? What do you mean by illustrations? I'm trying to determine whether this challenge is within my capabilities or not.

[justanotherhack]

Oh my, aren't we specific this time, that sounds like quite a challange. I actually love that, but guess I need o make a draft first to see if I understand the specifications. Too bad it's clearly fantasy, so it's hard to pull of that old joke about looking for love in Alderaan places... but maybe that's for the better .

[Bogie]

Now THIS is an interesting challenge. Hopefully I'll get to doing it.

It will be SO interesting to see all the different versions of it, and good practice for those who haven't done a commission too.

LOL "Old Mage Finds a New Love" How'd you come up with that?

That is what I wanted to expose some of the new people to, how a commission might work. NO I will not be demanding revisions.

"Old Mage Finds a New Love" Just me being silly.

[Bogie]

May I pose a question? What do you mean by illustrations? I'm trying to determine whether this challenge is within my capabilities or not.

Artwork that makes the map look fancier even though it isn't actually part of the cartography. Like GLS did in his recent map with the sword, helmet and staff. or it could be those sea-monsters you see on a lot of old maps. Even if you can't draw there are a ton of those available on google images. Since we are not actually publishing this book we are not worried about copyrights.

[Loukana]

That's an interesting challenge ! I'm in !