June/July Entry: The Tomb of King Eravyr

[Alecthar]

Alright, I did a rough go at the hand-drawn map, and I think it gives a good idea of my intent going forward, and looks pretty okay. The shading is giving me trouble, can you tell I've paired my dearth of artistic talent with my utter lack of formal training?

I'm going with the hand-written labels (to match the rest of the map) as well as some hand drawn sarcophagi in the Chamber of the Three Sons, an altar in the Ritual Room, etc. etc. If I can work some DevinNight-style magic I'll have a top-down statue or two to line the halls with. I think I'll probably make all that separately from the map, scan them in, and then scale them down to size. Hopefully that will work *crosses fingers*.

Also adjusting the back story slightly. I felt like I made a big deal out of the fact that Cornelius was going mad, and then sort of just went, "but anyway, that doesn't have any bearing on things." I'll edit this post with a revised version of the "letter."

[JakeWoods]

THis map is coming along very nicely

[Alecthar]

Jakewoods, I'm glad you're here, because I'm throwing down the gauntlet, figuratively speaking of course. I experimented a bit today, making some top-down statues, and my first attempt didn't come out half bad.

Unfortunately, it didn't scale down super well. And you know what that means:

We're drawing to scale, folks.

I PosteRazored the basic blueprint lines I did earlier. Here's my first attempt:



I discovered 2 things: First, that I needed to align better, I was wasting paper, and Second, I have borderless printing. To the printer properties!



Tomorrow I deplete my local craft store's supplies of good pencils, quality erasers, and felt-tip markers and pens, and we are gonna start ourselves a dungeon map!

Seriously, though, this is gonna be awesome.

PS: I love your map, Jake, I wish I'd thought of the book thing first.

[JakeWoods]

Jakewoods, I'm glad you're here, because I'm throwing down the gauntlet, figuratively speaking of course.

Im always up for a challenge. Does this mean that Ill have to do some more maps of the barracks and the ruined fort area... If I get the time I will...

[Alecthar]

Im always up for a challenge. Does this mean that Ill have to do some more maps of the barracks and the ruined fort area... If I get the time I will...

No, I'm pretty sure the intent in my challenge was that you rest on your laurels and allow me to attempt to catch up with your expertise and excellent idea.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was it.

[ravells]

Oh grudge match! This should be interesting!

[Syt]

Alecthar, I'm following the creation of the map closely. I like your design and "treasure finds" which are elegant and understated so far, something that I enjoy a lot. Very much looking forward to the completed work. Best of luck!

[Alecthar]

Alright, I've finished my first three sheets of scale drawing, and they're really coming out well, I think. I'm fairly sure I'm going to have some trouble going forward with stitching them all together, but I'll figure it out.



Edit: And now 5/7 sheets drawn and stitched:

Probably gonna have to move things around a bit, but otherwise this is looking pretty good, if I do say so myself.

And I do.



Edit Two, Electric Boogaloo: The moment we've all been waiting for (well, me at least )...

BAM!

Finished with drawing the basic map. It was a lot of work, and I had to do several tests and a few pretty messed up trial sheets before I got a look I was satisfied with. The map outline is done with felt-tip marker, to give a nice true black. The lines could have been cleaner, but if I'd wanted clean lines I'd have stuck with the GIMP generated outline. The shading is all charcoal, brushed with tissue to give a semblance of a cast shadow. I didn't really want it to do much other than give the map some texture, so if you critique my shading, know that my response will probably be something along the lines of "looks good to me." The cracks in the floor are a very fine-tipped felt-tip pen. I scanned them in, did some minor GIMP-work to even out some shading, connect rooms where there was a short distance of outline missing, etc. etc.

Of course, now that I've finished this I realize how much more I still have to do:

• Debris (stones from small ceiling collapses, scattered scrolls, etc.)
• Columns and Statues and three Sarcophagi
• Room Labels
• Some nice arrows from objects going to the rooms they were found in
• Margin notes and whatnot, detailing more finds and various points of interest not featured in drawings
• Some maddened scrawling in the margins as well (to match the background story)

Ah, well, the road goes ever onward...

Edit 3, Edit with a Vengeance:

Just moved the map a bit so that the composition of the objects and map looks a bit better. Just gonna replace the third WIP pic with this one.

### LATEST WIP ###

[JakeWoods]

Alecthar

I have posted an arial view map of my comp map in the completed maps section titled Fort Grenstien so I dont confuse any of the grudge match maps with the comp map...