Westcrown - After-the-Fact WIP

[Ashenvale]

On a side note, I looked through your portfolio website and noticed the Wolf Nomads and Cold Marshes maps you did and realized I used them in one of my games a while back to great success.

Wow! Fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

That was my second map for the old Dungeon Magazine. Mike Schley was my editor, another great guy (whose astonishing work I saw yesterday in Barnes & Noble in the new D&D 4.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide). I wanted to try a unusual approach to a regional map, something like some National Geographic maps I'd seen. Mike let me fly with the idea, and Dungeon published it.

I got very mixed feedback. Nobody had a neutral opinion. Some loved it. Others hated it, noting that computing accurate distances across the map face was impossible and saying it looked like an overly saturated satellite photo rather than a genuine gaming map.

But I loved making it. I should do another thread on that map. Lots of lessons learned! And I could tell the story of the vignette illustrations surrounding a later version of the map. But here's the basic map Dungeon published (copyright 2005 by Edward J. Reed, all rights reserved):

[Ashenvale]

Great advice and awesome maps. It's good to hear someone in the industry give such a detailed example of the process of creation as it applies to professional publishing. I look forward to more of your posts and insights.

Thanks, man! Compliments like that make me want to keep posting! Now I need to get back to work on posting my retrospective WIP on the Haunted Mansion, a task so big and daunting I've been avoiding it. You've just given me the incentive to try.