Reply With Quote
Danke schön (und willkommen).
That reminds me, I have a postcard I need to try to write in German. Use it or lose it!
My votings are:
Tear: I like the different maps very much, and it´s a great idea to "pin" them on a board like this
Töff: Awesome map. I like the creation with the smaler maps and your mapping style.
Steel General: The structure of the mountain/volcano is cool.
Danke schön (und willkommen).
That reminds me, I have a postcard I need to try to write in German. Use it or lose it!
Venus Public Transit, Map Of Ceres, Jack Vance's Ports Of Call & Lurulu ... why do I only have 3 maps here?
Map reviews (?)
Hmmm... I wasn't aware we were supposed to post reviews. Ok, then. I voted for:
töff, Woadsbury: Beautiful work; even just the "main" map is great. Especially wonderful are the frames; not uniform, not even closed, but flowing together organically. A slight nitpick: wouldn't that area have been Roman in AD 350?
Coyotemax, Lynch the Scribe: Even the "before" map is nice: great trees, mountains, an amusingly completist list of "encounters". Then the hilarious "after" map seals it. My favourite: "WE DON'T GO HERE" -- "Because there's bloody well nothing here"
Tear, Sapphire Bay: I was expecting more people to take this route (drawing the same area using the map styles of different eras), but this one is very nicely done. I like how the names change organically: the castles become "Stonewall" and "Castleport", Ellar takes over the lands of the Argatian Empire (and they become a nature preserve), Greenvale (which is just a nice green valley in the oldest map) survives to become a trading post, etc. There are a couple of problems: in the thread, Tear mentions that the maps show exactly the same part of land, with the same map projection and everything, but I think that helps to get across the sense of progress. What I don't really see is the scale: if the scale bar is to be believed, everything is very small (Spira is only 25 miles long!); too small to fit everything in, maybe.
Other maps I liked:
Immolate, Leonardo's Lawnscaping: A cute idea, nicely executed. Some nice touches in the map: Guido the cave troll, the "relocated" tenants, Leonardo sleeping on the deck. Would have been my fourth choice, if we had one.
Steel General, Unexpected Int-Eruption, and jerriecan, Chaskar's Doom: Quite similar, not only in idea but in effect (on me at least). Both are beautifully rendered: I especially like the red giant and the smoking crater! The problem with both is that (unlike, say, Sapphire Bay), I never felt any kind of attachment or sense of loss in Makhazi or Chaskar; Sapphire Bay, on the other hand, has an actual history (well told through the maps) that we feel has actually been lost in the post-apocalyptic final map.
Ashenvale, Feeding Hills: Gorgeously rendered, easily the most aesthetically appealing map of the Challenge. It's just not, well, not very informative; besides the church, I have no idea what any other building in the village is, where the roads go, what have you; I feel no association with this village. It's almost so damn pretty I don't care, but it still doesn't quite have it for me.
Sapiento, The Celesian Empire: Like all of Sapiento's maps, marvelously executed. The only problem is that, beyond the "dates of joining the Empire", I don't see the "passage of time" theme! It looks more like a "general information" map which happens to include dates, than an "historical" map; if, say, the regions had been differently coloured based on their dates of conquest, it might have seemed more fitting.
So, lots and lots of beautiful and well-executed maps. Great Challenge this month! I can hardly wait for the next one....
Indeed. There was a Roman installation called Towcester only a few miles north. I will try to include it in all the other labelling that is yet to come. Woadsbury itself, though, at that time, was simply a small native village, unworthy of Roman atten tion except perhaps to extract some of its domestic product (mostly woad and food, then) for taxation. Our first story takes place with King Arthur's ennoblement of the first Baron Woadsbury, well after the Roman withdrawal.Originally Posted by gilgamec
Venus Public Transit, Map Of Ceres, Jack Vance's Ports Of Call & Lurulu ... why do I only have 3 maps here?
It isn't a requirement.
But it is appreciated.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
Ugh this is the problem about voting without looking properly at the maps and not expanding the thumbnails...sorry Coyote, had I seen it in all it's glory, it would have got mine...excellent stuff and a really good laugh in the bargain.
:: edit :: I'm reading more of this now and I'm still laughing....how DID I miss this entry???
:: sides hurting now::
Last edited by ravells; 09-29-2009 at 06:00 PM.
Coyotemax: A beautiful map made absolutely hilarious in the after version. When you finished your map mid-month I knew I'd be voting for you.
Ashenvale: An unusual perspective and an interesting technique too. I'm glad to see the map completed; the overall atmosphere and detail of the ruins make for a fantastic result.
Toff: There's a very sleek professionalism about this map, and you get props for finding a nice way to combine your different eras into one image. For me, your solution for organizing the space won you the vote over Tear, whose work was also excellent.
Unless otherwise noted, all of my posted work is free for use and redistribution under
the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 licence.
Again I'm floored by how great the maps look.
I voted for Ashenvale for his wonderful dreamy and dark vision of the town.
Toff for his fantastic way of working it all in, in one great looking image.
Jerriecan for his approach, a great look at a dying planet in all it's 3d glory.
I'm going to have to make future challenge request be indoors just to have a glimmer of a chance of competing with you guys, as far as outside terrain is concerned I'd never have a chance.
Nice job to everyone who worked on the challenge.
What a stellar month for entries. Seems everyone's back from their summer vacations with a vengeance. Well done to everyone on this months competition. These are a fantastic testament to the skill in the guild.
Excellent point, Gilgamec! Great criticism. In its present form, the map could well leave one feeling somewhat disconnected, somewhat lost, which kinda defeats the whole purpose of a map. I won't blunder into that shortcoming again in another Challenge.
My friend (the adventure's author) and I (as cartographer and possibly, hopefully, the illustrator), have over two months until the publisher's likely deadline for this project. (Words like "Christmas" and "New Years" have been bantered about.) Accordingly, the adventure manuscript itself continues to evolve. Given the lengthy and somewhat fluid timeline, the author hasn't nailed down locales yet, compromising my ability to add a key or tags that designate areas, buildings, and the like.
I'd nonetheless flirted with inventing one of my own design for this Challenge, even though I'd have to chuck it for the real map in the end. But the most descriptive names -- the best locale ideas -- come from the manuscript. While I'm bold enough to thrust my work out there before the publisher locks things down with a Nondisclosure Agreement, I'm far too chicken to offer up the author's ideas without permission. Even so, I'd leaned towards fabricating my own place names and putting them into the map jsut for Challenge purposes (as I think I mentioned in my developing map thread -- or perhaps I just whined that I lacked time for tags, I'll have to go back and check). But I bit off more than I could chew trying to shoe-horn this commission into this Challenge's timeframe.
I flat ran out of time.
Not an excuse! What one offers for a Challenge is what one offers for a Challenge. Deadlines are the real world. Meet them or shut up. And I'm proud of what I submitted in its present form.
But your comments help me see my entry with keener insight. That’s why this site is splendid. With your help, I'll now make sure the final version to hit the publisher's desk fills the viewer with a profound and meaningful sense of place. My thanks! Have some rep, dude! ("THWACK!!")
You just made my work product better.
(An personal aside: I'm still holding my breath hoping that I get the greenlight to illustrate the cover and create some of the adventure's interior artwork. I've prepared a rockin' mock-up of the cover, which the author sent off to the publisher as an enticement. But no word back yet. Waiting—waiting—waiting . . . cross your fingers for me!)
Last edited by Ashenvale; 09-30-2009 at 12:26 AM.
Posting Permissions
