Bloodrock

Even though I'm already overloaded with projects, I decided to take part in the new Lite Challenge over at Cartographer's Guild.

(I've well and truly got the mapping bug).

The Challenge, in an excerpt of Bogie's words, was this:

"...make a map of the Underworld, whatever that means to you... so you could do a cave system, or a whole underground city, or a hollow earth type setting, or the sewer system under a city and what lives down there, or what ever your creative minds come up with..."

I had already been working on a new texture - a rocky texture that I wanted to use as a cliff formation, and staring at it so long gave rise to this back story:

Bloodrock is the name of a small Inferosian settlement at level zero - the closest level to the surface. Here the light that emanates from the core of the underworld is dimmest, and the stronger light is either from above, through the drains and skylights they have made for themselves, or from their own streetlights - powered by electricity they steal from the world of the giant humans that infest the surface of their planet.

The Inferosian civilisation is agrarian, in that the majority of their people work the mushroom fields, or fish the oceans of the deeper levels for the great white eyeless fish. There is a small army - sufficient to defend the realm from such monsters as rats, and a ruling class, who prefer to live up near the surface above everyone else, in places just like Bloodrock.


And started with this draft, which is basically just the texture with a couple of lighting effects and an experimental row of houses and a road:

[Image_6831]

Next I worked on framing the map as an underground situation, by creating one of those grilles of little glass squares to cover it - down through which we peer at Bloodrock (or what will become Bloodrock). There are two versions of this stage:

With the grille in place...

[Image_6832]

with the grille opened up...

[Image_6833]
«134

Comments

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited October 2016
    This is the largest version of the texture that I can upload here, and which gave rise to the concept of this map.

    A 2500x2500 version of this texture is available here
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Things have changed somewhat. I've been having a few technical difficulties today, so I haven't got as far as I wanted to, and things don't necessarily look the way I intended them to look.

    I've taken the lighting out because its really difficult working with it. Zoom in and the light disappears!

    I'll put it back in when I've finished, although having no 'darkness below' lends it a very weird atmosphere that I kind of like :)
  • So when does the story switch, and you reveal the planet is really a living creature? That texture just looks so much like leathery (tempted to say "dragon") skin; fabulous in all senses!
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    You might just have invented a really nice 'Terry Pratchett' style twist to the tale (the late author of the Discworld series, where the world is a disc that flies through space on the back of a turtle)

    The texture doesn't look anything like this at full resolution. In fact none of it does. Here is a small extract so you can see what I mean.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Despite the problems yesterday I've been able to get some work done on this map.

    I think there may still be some problems lurking in the background somewhere, since I'm still getting these strange interference patterns between the lights, and it doesn't seem to matter how many I use, or how narrow the beam.

    Still. This is something I will probably have a few days to look at, since the rest of the map will only take about 3-4 more days now.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Only now that I've spent several hours fussing over the houses and their gardens, am I beginning to think that I may have got something slightly wrong with the composition!

    There are things I can do to make it better, but first I have to invent a forest of mushroom symbols to draw the eye.
  • Wow. An underground city on a mesa.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Great! That was exactly the illusion I was trying to create.

    Thanks for that, Jim :D
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    I changed the composition a bit. There are many rough edges on this one. I just haven't bothered to tidy everything up just yet.

    Can you spot the difference? (no prizes - sorry)
  • I thought the background was darker, but now I'm not sure.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    No, that's not it ;)

    The important thing is - does it look any better?
  • It looks better, but I cannot spot why. But my eyes aren't great either.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    I've increased the number of grid squares to 5 x 5 instead of 4 x 4. It just wasn't easy on the eye divided into quarters ;)

    I've also moved the entire land setting about 2/3 of a grid square higher up, but left the ocean where it was.

    I also forgot to move the shadows from the old grid along the bottom drain wall, and they're completely missing on the right hand side. Rush job - just to get it put right by the end of the day.
  • Sorry Sue, but if you're going to set a competition, you'll have to give us more than a couple of hours to post answers! I've not been online in a couple of DAYS!

    Spotted the "uplands" had moved north a way, but wasn't paying much attention to the grid at all for some reason. I'm thinking the current version looks maybe a tad too much like a battlemap movement grid. For a drain-cover/skylight style framework, the strips look a little too thin and insubstantial. If this is on/set into the upper ground surface, it doesn't look as if it would support someone standing on it, for instance, which I think was part of your original outline intent (and even allowing for thick, but very transparent, glass between the frame squares).

    Compositionally, the southern half seems to need a point or two of interest still to draw the eye more to me.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Hello Wyvern :)

    It wasn't so much a competition as a guessing game with Jim (and anyone else who just happened to be around), so nothing really missed ;)

    I know the grid is rather slender, but making the texture 'thicker in the vein', so to speak... yes, its a texture... would obscure too much of the map. Its a compromise. I'll have another look at it closer to the end, but for now there is a lot of other work to do.

    The southern sectors are intentionally blank - I've a really big surprise to unveil... when I've finished drawing it, that is :)

    I've been working on the colours, the lighting and getting the right balance in all HSL matters. That blue, blue ocean just HAD to go!!!

    So here's where I'm at right now.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited October 2016
    Do you think these look like suitable mushrooms for my forest?

    [Image_6849]

    I have to separate them out from the texture and make a few symbols, but I think I need to work on it a bit more!
  • Mayeb add a few green or other 'off' colors for them.
  • GatharGathar Traveler
    Hello Sue,

    I have a few suggestions for your grid, in order to make it more part of the world (by the way, 5*5 is much better than 4*4, even if I did not spot the difference before being guided to it):
    - It might project some shadow/reflection on the world below, especially on the water
    - When a bar crosses another one, it might look like if it goes around the first one. Like if it was woven metal streams. This would not happen for a normal sewer grid, which is a plate with holes dug into it, but since you go to something thinner, it would make some sense I think...
    - It might have a place to put a wrench to open it
    - Alternatively, it might feature a padlock

    I really like this picture (like all the maps you make...), it makes me think of fraggle rock!
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Posted By: JimPMayeb add a few green or other 'off' colors for them.
    Thanks Jim :)

    I think I can manage a few shrivelled and browned ones that are past their best, and a few rounder baby ones... a few bracket fungi perhaps... depends on how much time I have left after I've done the rest of the structure ;)
    Posted By: GatharHello Sue,

    I have a few suggestions for your grid, in order to make it more part of the world (by the way, 5*5 is much better than 4*4, even if I did not spot the difference before being guided to it):
    - It might projectsome shadow/reflectionon the world below, especially on the water
    - When a bar crosses another one, it might look like if it goes around the first one. Like if it was woven metal streams. This would not happen for a normal sewer grid, which is a plate with holes dug into it, but since you go to something thinner, it would make some sense I think...
    - It might havea place to put a wrench to open it
    - Alternatively, it might feature a padlock!
    Thanks Gathar :)

    Those are some really good suggestions, and even though it would require that I actually draw the grid rather than use a texture, I will seriously consider them if I have time ;)

    What is this Fraggle Rock? I looked it up just briefly and discovered it was a muppet thing from way back when I was about 16 yrs old, but I don't remember seeing it. Maybe I was a bit too old to be quite as riveted to Fraggle Rock as I was to the Muppets ;)
  • GatharGathar Traveler
    Yes, Fraggle rock was make by the same people as the Muppets, but is was more a story whereas the Muppets were more like a talk show. I think I was more of the right age for them...

    The main point was that the tiny men at the front of the picture with the helmets were busy building some nonsense tiny-skyscrapers all day long, while the bigger one just considered those like candy bars they spent their time eating. And your inferosians made me think of those little guys :)
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Ok. LOL. Just don't start calling me Grandma!

    The Inferosians were largely inspired by the Borrowers, who I first thought were a Terry Pratchett creation (but no, his very similar creation were the carpet people). The Borrowers were created by the English writer Mary Norton in 1952, and immortalised in various children's films all called (not surprisingly) "The Borrowers" in the 1980's and 90's. They're basically identical to us in every way, but just very much smaller - about Tom Thumb size - perhaps slightly bigger.

    I have diverged from that idea by having my Inferosians make buildings and roads the same way that we would, with tiny bricks and spider web mortar, whereas the Borrowers themselves would probably improvise by making all these things out of 'borrowed' items, like shoebox houses, etc.
  • Not-Grandma Sue: Appreciate the problems with the grid, especially now you've mentioned it's actually a texture. I wondered about a hazily transparent glass or crystal pane instead, but that may create worse problems with viewing the actual map scene below, unfortunately. I have tinkered around with misty "cover plates" for some of my own maps (essentially a grey or white area on a high-level sheet, thinned to near-transparency with effects), to make the whole look like it's being viewed through mist or thin clouds, though it took me a lot of effort to get to something I was halfway happy with. I had better luck when just adding a fadeout edge to some maps in a similar way.

    The lighting and textural zoning on the prototype mushrooms looks good. Maybe the odd one split more or less along a radius would add some extra variety? That may depend on their final sizes, however.

    I'd guessed you'd have something planned for the southern half - mushroom fields seemed likely, and maybe some docks and fishing boats too - but you hadn't hinted beyond that earlier!
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Hey Wyvern :)

    The effects in a complicated map are always a bit of a headache, but usually well worth the struggle ;)

    I've put a lot more detail into the southern area, and the whole map generally just by more or less finishing the road system. The spiral took forever to do (its on 6 different sheets) and it still has no support system or shadow. The worst of it is that after all that work I realise I have it all wrong - like an upside-down helter-skelter!

    I have the feeling this map is going to be much more hard work than I was originally intending.
  • Very nice. I'm getting more of an underground the Land of Gorch vibes than Fraggle Rock ones, and for those that don't know both were done by the Jim Henson. Henson also did the voice of King Ploobis , the ruler of Gorch and I could picture him and some of the other characters moving down after they lost Gorch. (Side Note: King Ploobis seems to have been a major inspiration to the way a certain major fantasy race found in RPGs looks today and may have been the inspiration for an alien species from the Star Wars franchise. Some of the other Gorch character's inspired the look of some other things too.) See this links if you want to see what he looks like and for more on the Land of Gorch. They really ought to bring the charter back in some form as today he would be very popular if marketed correctly.

    http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/King_Ploobis

    http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Land_of_Gorch
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Thanks Jay_NOLA :)

    Quite fascinating... but is it true that none of you have ever heard of the Borrowers? No?

    I'm busy trying to turn the conic spiral the right way up at the moment, but it doesn't look like I will finish it tonight. I also have an enormous number of houses and mushrooms to add to the scene, not to mention the harbour, and possibly (if I have time) the shape of a blind white sea serpent twisting around in the deeps...

    Or...

    I could forget the mushrooms (which are going to take a really huge amount of time to get right and not look like funny white stones all over the place), in order to have enough time to do everything else just right, and put a few red trees in instead?

    What do you think?
  • Posted By: LoopysueI've put a lot more detail into the southern area, and the whole map generally just by more or less finishing the road system. The spiral took forever to do (its on 6 different sheets) and it still has no support system or shadow. The worst of it is that after all that work I realise I have it all wrong - like an upside-down helter-skelter!

    I have the feeling this map is going to be much more hard work than I was originally intending.
    That's a complex system of minor roads, Sue! I'll be interested to see what you do with the causeway supports (or is it a bridge? A suspension bridge could add a second helping of "forever" to get right though, I fear...). I do like the spiral though, and am not quite seeing what you feel the problem to be; it looks like a descending spiral to me, though I agree the support structure will be another irritation. Unless it just "hangs there because it's artistically right", of course ;)
    Posted By: Loopysue... is it true that none of you have ever heard of the Borrowers? No?
    OK, I'll admit I'd heard of the Borrowers long before the TV series or movies, though I never read the stories. I suspect I heard them on the BBC children's storytelling programme Jackanory when I was a youngster though, which dates me...
    Posted By: LoopysueI'm busy trying to turn the conic spiral the right way up at the moment, but it doesn't look like I will finish it tonight. I also have an enormous number of houses and mushrooms to add to the scene, not to mention the harbour, and possibly (if I have time) the shape of a blind white sea serpent twisting around in the deeps...

    Or...

    I could forget the mushrooms (which are going to take a really huge amount of time to get right and not look like funny white stones all over the place), in order to have enough time to do everything else just right, and put a few red trees in instead?

    What do you think?
    Mushrooms actually can look like funny white stones in reality, unfortunately. I've stopped the mower before now thinking I'd come across some stones in the grass, only to find they weren't. Sadly, that probably won't work as an excuse on a map, albeit things really seen top-down often don't look quite how you imagine they will, of course.

    Looking at the sizes of the buildings, could you get away with some textured mushroom fields instead, given that unless they're shed- to house-sized, individual mushroom caps probably aren't going to be that obvious from the map's vantage point? Will the fields have features like fence- or hedge-lines along their edges too? That might help distract from any minor imperfections in the crop texture, if time gets too pressing.

    Red trees - vegetation generally for hedging as well, perhaps? - could create points of interest, as splashes of colour, certainly.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Mushrooms... Borrowers... trees... hedges...

    My goodness! Thank you Wyvern :)

    The spiral is gone. If time were not so limited I would continue working on it until I was satisfied with it, but if I'm going to finish the map I'm going to have to lower my sights and compromise with a ramp.

    This, however, has introduced a few new problems in the form of transparency acne, following the addition of a colour key to the relief shading sheet, which has me momentarily rather puzzled. Don't worry, though - I'll work it out :)

    Update to follow in a couple of hours.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Sadly the spiral was a bit more than I could handle in the allotted time. I might have continued to bully it into shape if we were not already nearly half way through the month, but right now there is simply too much else to do to the map to afford getting hung up on it for any longer, so I've substituted an extremely convenient ramp of rock to take the road down to the lower level.

    I've also attempted to add a bridge shadow, a spike of rock with a monastery on top of it, and experimented with a couple of trees (which I think are way too bright, but which were the only trees I had to hand at the time). All these new bits still require work, so this is even more of a draft than the last version.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Here is a galvanised version of the grate, as suggested by one of my CG friends. I have mixed feelings about it, since I think it distracts attention from what lies below, but I'm open to comments either way :)
  • Sorry the spiral's gone, and though I hate to say it, I think it looked better than the current ramp, as I've lost the depth perspective, making the connection with the lower level seem a bit too flat. Maybe adding a simple "stone bridge" structure, like that spanning the highlands break to the west, would help?

    The galvanised grate version is way too bright overall, I think, and the white grid is very distracting. The subsurface features now all seem flattened generally. I'm getting an impression that the mesa is actually a crater below the surface level, especially on its southern side, where the "odd" road ramp now is. Touch of the Eschers overall, with the northern mesa edge above the surface, the southern below it. Or maybe it's just me...

    Monastery Rock seems to overlap the northern wing of the "L"-shaped building immediately below it very slightly; perhaps needs a slight tweak.

    Trees look interesting. What sort of colouring were you thinking of for them?

    One other thought. The main roads all have sweeping curves, but the narrower ones are mostly very rectilinear. That's making the minor roads look a little detached from the surface to my eye. On reflection though, I think that's because they're too close in colouring to the galvanised grate, so I'm not really treating the two as separate in places any longer.
Sign In or Register to comment.