Cliffside port - B&W 3d drawing WIP

Hi,

I've been asked to make a city map for a book. Since I document almost every step I take with this image (because I need the author's approval) - It made itself into a nice story of how I'me making this.
Since this is the first time I'm trying to do a serious project - so any help from you pro guys would be most helpful!

If this thing works out ok - It'd make a great tutorial (I hope)

1) Plan the basic layout
It's a city at the edge of a deep Fjord, with cliffs all around it. There's a system of lifts for transporting goods down to the city & up to the plains above. there's a system of dams for pushing back the sea & gaining some ground for the city to be built upon.
here's the first sketch of it:
Attachment 39605

2) Decide on "camera angle & lens type"
The request was that the entire city would be visible from above & some of the surrounding cliffs.
this is the list of possible viewing angles:

Attachment 39606

3) draw perspective
we've decided that the best one was a view from above the sea with a kind of "fish eye lens" effect for maximum viewing angle. here's the layout:

Attachment 39607

4) draw outline
with a 3px pencil tool i made the rough sketch on a large format paper (6000*6000px)
here it is:
Attachment 39608

5) draw line art
since this thing should be Black & White only - the last stage before effects & small fixes is the line art.
I'm currently in the middle of it, drawing at 200% zoom with a 10px pen tool, while the end result is a 20% view of the scene.

here's where i'm at so far:
Attachment 39609

so that's it for now.
i'll update as soon as I finish inking.

Amazing! *claps*

This is great, I can't wait to see the final product. Great going so far!

Wonderful! What a great way of representing a city! Is this "projection" an original idea?

By projection you mean the geometry? It's the 3d perspective that was needed for all the cliffs around the city to be seen. It can be a bit tricky doing this on paper, but you can always "cheat" & try it out with a 3D sculpting tool before drawing (I sometimes use Sculptris for that).

Will you be posting a slightly larger version too? I imagine this will have all sorts of awesome little details!

looks great allready.. looking forward to seing more - and as Larb says, we hope you post a larger version or at least some detail shots when you're done :)

Well, If the people i do the project for say it's ok - i'd love to post the full size version.
the thing is - since the final image should be the size of an A5 page - there really is no use going crazy with detail, so most of the buildings are just blobs.

I love it, looks amazing.

Ok, B&W drawing is finished. here it is:

Attachment 39771

workflow tips derived from this project:
- no good way to convey a sense of depth when using line art with fixed width - should have tried thinner lines for faraway places & thick lines for the foreground
- at high zoom levels it's very hard to keep the perspective in mind, and many housing blocks are too straight & look "crooked" in relation to the perspective
- more planning was needed before starting - some of the topography looks a bit Escher (3d doesn't make sense), should have a more detailed plan before starting


Right now I can't decide whether applying paint would be a good idea or not...

Anyway - this was fun, hope the next illustration for the book would be as interesting as this one was.