September Entry: "Feeding Hills" Village Maps

[Gandwarf]

The thumbnail scraper got a kick and all is well now I think...
That robot is a bit lazy and needs a kick now and then.

Anyway, beautiful work Ashenvale. This is the best work I have seen from you.

[Ashenvale]

Thanks, Gidde! Thanks, Gandwarf! I'm happy too and had loads of fun working on it. My personal goal remains to develop maps that don't look like everyone else's maps, and I saw this as a chance to push myself in a new direction. I think that's perhaps this website's greatest strength: there are so many strong members with such divergent approaches to cartography, there's always something new to discover, draw inspiration from, or simply sit back and soak up in delight and wonder. (Edit: I don't mean my work! I mean yours.)

I wish I could show you some of my other more recent work. That's the nature of our business, though, isn't it? Nondisclosure agreements muzzle us during the creation process, and, even after completion, publishers don't like us displaying reproductions until long after their first publication run. So we have to market ourselves with out-of-date examples of our work. Stupid system.

I slipped this one through because the publisher hasn't sent me a contract yet, and because the map will likely change markedly before publication. The author and publisher will undoubtedly have changes they'll need before this goes out to the real world. But, for once, because of the Challenge, I'm months ahead of my deadline.

Of course, because of the Challenge, I'm now far, far behind on projects with more immediate deadlines. But I'll worry about that tomorrow.

I'm SO glad the actual deadline kicked from the 25th to the 27th. I had no chance of pulling a finished piece together by the 25th.