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:
corner1.jpg

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:

corner-perspectives.jpg

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:

C03.jpg

4) draw outline
with a 3px pencil tool i made the rough sketch on a large format paper (6000*6000px)
here it is:
C04.jpg

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:
C05.jpg

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