Siete Torres - The City of Seven Towers

[ZleapingBear]

I must say that im truly impressed. and i dont know were to start if i ever want to do half that good. Only one thing springs to my mind... your "Gates" or the small square towers on the wall. they seem sligthly transparant? you can actealy see the wall beneath them, as if it hat an alpha of 98% ore some.. is that on purpose or? :S

Still great map and Way to go

[Immolate]

Ascension... writing is easy, mapping is hard. I don't know why that is. Words flow effortlessly most of the time, and once they've started, they just keep coming. But cartography requires constant effort and constant validation. If what I'm creating doesn't appeal to my eye, I lose energy and volition. I am a craftsman at heart, not an artist. I want to construct something of beauty at some level that pleases with its aesthetic. The biggest gun in my armory may be my pen, but I can't see or judge the quality of my words. Mapping is hard, but it satisfies.

So using cartography as an inspiration for words--not so much. I think mapping is instead a potent short-hand for words, with a well-crafted image conveying a massive wellspring of information, seemingly without effort. But we here at the Cartographer's Guild, we industrious gnomes, we know better. We don't spit out maps... we birth them, with all of the pain and mess that entails.

Zleaping Bear: that doesn't surprise me. Somewhere in the fever swamp of inspiration that was Siete Torres, I evolved out of my "blending through transparency" stage. There are probably other examples. There is great value in understating and transparency is a powerful tool for that purpose, but it isn't the only tool, and sometimes its the wrong tool. As much as I'd like Siete Torres to be perfect, it would be too easy to get stuck in that map and loose the motivation to produce and progress. But thank you for bringing it to my attention, and even more, thank you for caring enough to look that closely. It is that sort of scrutiny that prompts me to cross my t's and dot my i's.