John Speed city, looking for more symbols

Hi everyone.

I've been playing around with CC3 for some years, but am about to start mapping out a city for an RPG supplement I am currently finishing. The city is a medieval trading/mining town reminiscent of some of the southern Rhineland/alp towns in Germany of the late medieval period. I've had various hand-made iterations of a draft for a year now, and it's time to put it to the test.
I've fallen in love with the John Speed city pack from the 07' annual. I've had a look around the forum on some of the great John Speed maps some people have made, but am missig insipiration/help for a few things:

- Elevation: Any suggestions on how to do this in a way that fits nicely with the map style? I don't see much elevation on the original John Speed maps I found on google.
- Cliffs: The elevation I mentioned before will have some cliffs along its edges. I was thinking of taking cliffs/mountains from one of the B&W overland styles.
- Waterwheels, workshops and other specialised buildings: I guess I can draw some myself, but I am not a good artist. Should I get better at drawing, has someone made some already I can find/buy or is there other good ways to get more symbols?

Thank you very much in advance. Looking forward to hearing your suggestions.

Comments

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited June 2017
    Hello DanTrue :)

    I had a look around online and found that this map presents the answer to the question of how he represented hills, at least. If you look at the inset map on the bottom right you can see that although the map is top down he has drawn the hills in side view. I don't think an awful lot of thought went into the accurate representation of topography back then, and I also think that to add anything to the style (for example contour lines or hachures) would change it quite drastically and make it no longer a John Speed style map, but something new that is based on John Speed.

    http://www.oldtowns.co.uk/speed-wales-pembrokeshire.htm
  • Hi Dan. I think you'll find some of the answers to your questions via the illustrations on the Wikipedia John Speed webpage.

    As Sue already mentioned, his hills are drawn in side-view, so you can simply use the hills from the Annual '07's Mercator Historical style for those.

    As for your specific queries, see the Wikimedia Speed drawings for Montgomery (elevations, cliffs, escarpments, mountains, hills) and Reading (waterwheels - see the buildings to either side of the number 5, near the centre of the map for two mill options). Adding a simple four-spoked circle "wheel" should be fairly easy to draw, I'd hope - it doesn't have to be especially neat in this style, thankfully!

    In general, only ecclesiastical and castellated buildings seem to be drawn with different features otherwise, so you could probably get away with a simple keyed entry, or using a specific colour, for other important buildings (like workshops). If necessary, you could alter the sizes of the symbol buildings to make them larger, or even change just their length or height, using the "Independent X and Y" option under "Symbol Parameters" (right click with the mouse when you've clicked to add any symbol to your map).
  • GatharGathar Traveler
    While in a different style, maybe you can use some elements of city panorama to display elevations and cliffs? http://www.profantasy.com/annual/2015/july15.html
  • Thanks a bunch for all your suggestions - they were a great help! Now I will get started.

    - Dan
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