[WIP} Map of Elníl

[Yasha Oqlie]

Here's a WIP of the map I'm currently working on, depicting the valley of Elníl.

Exams and real-life stuff have kept me busy for the past month or so, and I just hadn't been able to work on my Khertagawei map after my last post. I'm getting back to it, but at the moment I'm very dissatisfied with the overall shape of the land, so I decided to work on something else in order to keep up with the inspiration while I take care of that problem. In order to avoid struggles with things so simple and basic as land shapes, I decided to work on bringing to life maps that I have drawn when I was 12 or thereabouts. Nostalgia will most likely beat my nitpicky tendencies, or at least that's what I'm hoping for.

Here's the handdrawn original that I've scavenged from my old worldbuilding stuff. I do apologize for the terrible quality, but I don't have a good camera handy.

2018-01-23 20.46.19.jpg

I decided that I'm going to redraw this in an isometric style. While I intend to keep things similar to what I had drawn back then, I'm still going to shift some things around and add and remove features to make it more... interesting. For this map, I'm going to value aesthetics and having-fun-while-drawing-it over realism and accuracy. For instance, the mountains are going to be much much larger than they actually should be. At any rate, here is what I have so far, which isn't much at all, but I wanted to start this thread both in order to push myself to actually work on it, and also to get suggestions and guidance as early as possible.

Firstly, I've made the original photo fit the perspective I'm going for:

wip 1.png

And this is the basic reference for the map, laying down the whereabouts of the base of the mountain range and the river:

wip 2.png

As you see, I've decided to add more rivers to the original, because I figured a verdant valley such as this should feature more streams and whatnot. BTW, the scraggly stuff at the mouth of the valley is a Hadrian-style wall. The people of Elníl are really xenophobic

I think I'll draw the map in grayscale and add colors later, but I guess we'll see what happens.

Suggestions and criticism are very welcome, so please don't hold back.