Sketchy map of on-going campaign

[Fabrice]

The map attached is a trial at reproducing my DM's sketch of the local area where our campaign is staged. The map is still quite empty, but will probably get more busy as we keep exploring.

For this drawing I used the hand-drawn symbols from an add-on by ProFantasy. The only feature that is not a ready-made symbol is the large chasm that I had to force into existence "by hand", and with limited esthetic success despite quite a few hours trying to make it look nice.

Any suggestion from the assembly about the style as well as about the use of the software will be welcome.

Thank you in advance.

[Steel General]

The chasm isn't all that bad really, I think it works well with the other 'hand drawn' sumbols you've used.

[jfrazierjr]

The chasm isn't all that bad really, I think it works well with the other 'hand drawn' sumbols you've used.

I agree... The chasm fits pretty well other than the AA issues, but you are limited by the tool, so I can't fault you for that....

btw, whats with the blue mountains? Not exactly something I ever would have expected seeing. I assume there is some type of in game explanation?

[Fabrice]

Thanks for the comments.

There are no explainations for depicting the montains in blue except that I was trying to emulate some of S. Wroot's maps as seen on the ProFantasy website. There was a big brown patch on the map and I wanted something lighter to try and balance it. I guess I can insist with the DM that the local dwarves be called the Blue Shield clan or something similar and I would then have my rationale.

What I do not like about the chasm is the appearance of the edge of the southern "bank".

To give an impression of perspective, I had to partially mask the river with the land. To do so, I first drew the edge line with the same style as for the northern bank. Then I created a solid fill of the same colour as the land background and no outline. I used the Trace command to keep the edge line and the solid fill in perfect contact. I moved then both the edge line and the solid fill on a special sheet positioned in the stack so that they cover almost everything on the drawing (except text and map border).

But the result is that the edge line is partially hidden by the solid fill (see below) and it does not look "clean".

On another aspect, I think I will replace the text labels and use a more manuscript-looking font...

[Fabrice]

Well I gave up on improving the chasm, as the solution keeps eluding me and considering that this may be not the most critical mapping skill to improve right now (just have to avoid running into more chasm during play ).

I changed the font to a handwritten-looking one, tuned down the letter glow a bit, changed the background to white and played with the old paper annual.

The result was not too bad, considering that it took really no time at all to apply the paper background and customise it (1st picture).

Then, since it is gloomy and snowy here and my wife keeps watching Korean dramas, I ran through RobA's amazing old paper tutorial for GIMP and imported the map (after changing the background to white and hand-adjusting the picture to make the edge blend better).

The result (2nd picture) is obviously much much much nicer, with a cool tattered feel (I am not quite sure about the paper edge, though). However, it does take significantly more time to apply to the map, which is important here since the campaign is on-going and it means quite a lot of manipulation everytime the party discovers a new locale.

No question for the Guild in this post; just sharing the result of my experiments with other beginner CC3 users.

[Larb]

You could perhaps give the chasm a little more depth by adding a little bit of shadow to the lower part of the chasm wall. Something subtle though.

The second map on the old paper is nice. I think it goes well with the whole hand-drawn style. I like it.

[Steel General]

Nice job, I especially like the second one. Look forward to seeing more your work.

[Gandwarf]

Unfortunately I cannot rep you right now, but I really like the second version. It has a great fantasy feel to it. The chasm turned out all right I think.

[Fabrice]

All right, now I am stuck again.

The DM gave us some info about what was laying north and south of the area already depicted and so I started updating the map... except that I already reached the map border in CC3, so I keep hurling myself (or, rather, my roads and river) against a most impregnable invisible wall.

I have read in the manual that a CC3 map is virtually infinite, but no matter how many times I tell this to my computer, it just will not let me proceed ...

I could probably start a new, bigger map from scratch, but I played so much with the drawing tools and sheet effects etc... that I would gladly avoid having to re-do it.

Would there be an experienced CC3 user in the assembly to instruct me how I may increase the size of this map?

In advance, thank you.

[Fabrice]

So that was not so complicated...

The edge line of the chasm was simply behind the solid fill. I did not realise that entities were ordered even if they are on the same sheet, but now it makes perfectly sense.

As for the scale problem, I just add to scale up the white frame on the Screen sheet. Did not see it there first, being white on white...

Now I can see I am a real beginner...

Next on the list: find a proper symbol for the bridge in the south, replace the Bastarda text labels by hand-calligraphed ones, and cut away the terrain lines crossing through symbols.

That will be for next time, though.