Introductions and previous work

[Bedwyr]

<Karl Haas>Hello Everyone</Karl Haas>

I'm brand new to this site so I thought I'd introduce myself by showing off a few maps I'm quite proud of. I usually do my gaming and artwork in the Battletech universe, though I love fine maps of any sort. I own two real maps: one a somewhat inaccurate Atlas map of Roman Britain from 1845 and a small billet map of Roman Germany (Gaul) from 1730. The former sits in a frame whose cost was more than the map itself.

This first map was developed based on Battletech's Battleforce 2 box set. The campaign rules are called "planetary assault" and are due to be revised in the next calendar year by Catalyst Game Labs. The planet is Outreach, a mercenary hub once owned by the former Wolves' Dragoons. In the year 3067, the leftmost continent was bombarded by tactical nuclear weapons in an attack launched by the pseudo-religious Word of Blake in retaliation for a retaliation. The dragoons survived in tatters for awhile and a small company was reformed a generation or so later.

The numbers you see on the left are orbital progression boxes and on the right are 2d6 target numbers for a successful in-system jump (jumpdrives in this universe are limited to no more than 30 light years, 60 in certain rumored cases). They indicate the presence of null gravity points first discovered by LaGrange in 1750 and in Battletech fiction are suitable for jumping.

Techniques used here and below stem from the Solar Voyager website (what an awesome place) and liberal use of the Photoshop clone tool and blue marble images from NASA. Mostly Photoshopped and then completed in CorelDraw (need to learn Illustrator). Oh and I lost interest before finally finishing the small iceshelves at the poles. I'll get back to it eventually.




I look to find a faster method of making good looking strategic maps. I'm toying with Fractal Mapper and Terraformer but am having a great deal of trouble with it. More to come in the Sci-Fi forum.





The second map hews to the Aerotech ruleset outlined in the Total Warfare rulebook. Though you can use blank or generic space hexmaps, I wanted a more immersive map that referenced the rules in effect. What you see is essentially a vertical slice of a planetary combat zone where ships may execute re-entry and continue the battle below. Gravity effects extend 10 hexrows beyond the space-atmosphere interface shown in light-blue. Re-entry procedures continue from the interface to the final hexrow where units transfer to low-altitude flight. This is one map I had made in vinyl banner material at FastSigns for a very tidy sum. I expect to make a larger, similar map for a larger space area.





As you can see, my first experience getting color matching right wasn't that successful, but it still looks acceptable.