Huldugate

[Meshon]

Well after a whirlwind tour of Iceland's Ring road I'm back in Reykjavik and I had a chance to draw a little more before I get back on that plane. I'm sad to leave but I will carry away some amazing sights and experiences.

This map is inspired by Hamragarðar, an old farm now turned into a campground with an amazing waterfall behind it. The place is associates with Iceland's hidden folk, and who am I to doubt?


I think I'd like to add a nice border before I call this done. The ink I've been playing with lately still intimidates me, and I make mistakes. This time I tried a little 3B pencil as well...

Thanks for having a look, and for having imaginations!

Cheers,
Meshon

[Wingshaw]

Ooh, that's very nice, Meshon. I like the style a lot, it's really working well.

Any plans for what's next in this map?

THW

[Mouse]

Oh wow! That's a beauty

Scan shade and colour, yes?

[Meshon]

Thank you! I made a border, and I think I might stop here. At some point I will probably try adding some digital painting to a hand drawn map, but now that I'm back home I need to get back to work on a commission so that will have to wait I guess.
When I do ink maps I find that they're usually finished before I think of taking a WIP picture, I'll try to remember to do more pictures along the way next time. I'm mostly doing these these ink drawings for learning and practice, so I don't always have a clear vision of where it's going until it gets there...
Any suggestions for non-digital last touches?

Cheers,
Meshon

[snodsy]

Love this, maybe a little more defined shadowing would make it pop just a bit more? Really like the line style and volume (depth) that your getting. Cann't rep you right now, I'll come back, great job!

[Meshon]

Love this, maybe a little more defined shadowing would make it pop just a bit more? Really like the line style and volume (depth) that your getting. Cann't rep you right now, I'll come back, great job!

I agree, one of the things I wanted in this map was to define some unusual volumes. I'm not happy with the widely-spaced light lines I drew as an initial attempt at showing the large areas of shadow, so that's why I started in with a pencil. I'll try adding some more graphite before I finish with this, thanks for the suggestion!

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

[Mouse]

How are you with watercolour washes?

Whatever you do don't touch it with them unless you've done it before, and definitely not if the paper isn't suitable to take a watercolour wash, but when I look at it I fancy just some vague indication of colour (and I mean incredibly faint like J.Edward does), especially in the border. That's why I suggested scanning it, so you could do it to the electronic copy and leave the original as it is

Its such a lovely drawing you're making me want to paint it myself! LOL!

[Meshon]

How are you with watercolour washes?

Whatever you do don't touch it with them unless you've done it before, and definitely not if the paper isn't suitable to take a watercolour wash, but when I look at it I fancy just some vague indication of colour (and I mean incredibly faint like J.Edward does), especially in the border. That's why I suggested scanning it, so you could do it to the electronic copy and leave the original as it is

Its such a lovely drawing you're making me want to paint it myself! LOL!

I think it's safe to say that I'm rubbish at water colour, though I need to overcome my fear and spend some time on that. I would love to be able to add those beautiful touches of subtle colour I see in watercolour maps, for sure, but I definitely won't try it here.
I've put some more pencil on to try to improve the shading. I think the border is where it works best.


Mouse, I really like the idea of collaboration. I know you're paying a kind compliment but now you've got me thinking about how cartographers might combine efforts to create a collaborative piece. Any ideas? Maybe there could be a remix forum... "Here's a map by Mouse. I poured tea on​ it and now looks like this new thing!"

Anyway, thank you for the feedback!

Best,
Meshon

[Mouse]

ROFL!

Laughed myself silly at that one. You're more than welcome to pour tea over any of my maps, Meshon, I'm sure it would greatly improve the appearance of some of them

That would be kind of interesting, but I'm not sure how we would arrange it all. I mean - we would have to make little colouring books for each other, or something! LOL!

[Mouse]

You know... I've been thinking about this.

We could almost have a two-part challenge. The first one would be to draw an ink line hand drawn map designed ready for watercolour tinting, and then we could have the second part of the challenge where the entrants pick one of the maps produced in the first part of the challenge to shade and colour.

Do you think it would work? We would need at least 5 or 6 to enter the first part to be certain that there would be a decent range of styles to pick from in the second part.