Winter Village style development (March 2022 CA issue)
Loopysue
ProFantasy 🖼 41 images Cartographer
Hi Everyone :)
Profantasy have asked me to create a style called 'Winter Village' for this year's March issue in the Cartographer's Annual. It's based on the work I did for the Festive Winter Card Challenge, and is strongly linked to the Darklands City style I did for last year's annual. That means the buildings will be similar in nature to those of the DC style, though the textures and sheet setups are different.
The problem with snow is that it is so very bright white that it seems impossible at first to make things work and look interesting. But at the same time snow is all kinds of interesting colours that are mostly tinged blue. It's taken a bit of time to get a full snowy rooftop together that looks good with the snowy background, but I think I'm there at last.
This is the initial test building arranged as a circular array to test that the colours and shading work.
Let me know what you think :)
and 3 others.
Comments
Looks good !
Thanks Jim :)
This won't be part of the style because there are a few things that need far more time than is available to sort out before March, but I'm also working on a night time theme that might appear in the more distant future.
Looking forward to March!!!!!
Thanks Glitch :)
Not sure if they may be too recent a development (a few sources online - including Wikipedia, so who knows, but what can you do? - suggest they're about 300 years old), but perhaps some form of roof snow guards to break up the snow and ice might be something to consider? They're intended to mean any falling lumps are less likely to injure people on the ground.
I've never heard of snow guards.
Maybe that's because I live in an area that experienced 6 inches of snow just the once in the 55 years of my life - back when I was 7 yrs old.
They keep snow from sliding off tin roofs. They are used so that when the roof is ready to shed the snow all the snow doesn’t fall off the roof at one time. They are normally only used on tin roofs. Any roof with a rough surface doesn’t need them. Do not think you need to add them to your drawings.
Kind of a random fact, but some places use much steeper roofs because if the snow was allowed to accumulate too much on top it might get too heavy for the structure.
Wondering, will there be like "frozen lake" and "grass poking through the snow", textures or "ice fishing hole" symbols?
Yes - frozen lakes and all kinds of other stuff too :)
Speaking of winter... I stumbled into this Reddit post, but I can't think of much to say (I don't think"wait until march" is helpful ;). I'll just paste the link here in case someone has something to offer:
r/mapmaking - CC3+ winter Battlemaps question
https://www.reddit.com/r/mapmaking/comments/rkzyoz/cc3_winter_battlemaps_question/Sorry if I'm hijacking this post.
Sadly, this style won't help whatsmyusename much either, since it is a city style, not a dungeon style. City symbols are not as detailed as dungeon symbols, so would probably be found inadequate for purpose.
I think whatsmyusename is perhaps unaware of the huge range of fills and symbols available through the third party packs, and that these can be imported quite easily and used in CC3.
EDIT: I have joined Reddit in order to be able to answer the question...
Not merely tin (or other sorts of metal) roofs, but any smoother kinds of roofing material, such as tiles or slates. The idea is to substantially roughen the surface in some fashion - using rocks or logs sometimes (still to be seen in the Alps today in places, for instance). Reason I suggested them is, and depending on the snow thickness, they can break-up the appearance of the smooth surface of the snow seen on the roof symbols currently.
Thatched roofs tend to be pitched steeply enough to shed snow (and water), thus snow shouldn't accumulate as much on them (in parts of Japan subject to heavy snowfalls, the thatched roofs have a particularly steep pitch, for example). This isn't so much because thatch can't cope with the snow or water, but because thatch is usually lighter than other roofing materials, so may not be sufficiently supported by the underlying roof structure to carry the additional weight of substantial snowfalls.
Ah, I see what prompted the suggestion now.
The test roof was a straightforward test of the texture intended as the background for the rest of the detail.
Here you can see the original ring of test house, along with a more advanced test (the larger building)
Remember that these are basically snowy versions of the Darklands City buildings, so the thatch houses will have a hint of the underlying thatch, and decorative herringbone near the ridge. The tiled houses will have a different pattern, where I have notcied that the snow tends to be thinner and melt first over the joins between the tiles. Other textures include working out where the snow will stick and where it won't on things like the arched metal dormers for the tile houses, and so on.
Can I send you some of the 49.5" we got last month?
I like the latest image you posted but I also liked the first one. The thing to remember is that at a certain point the snow accumulation on the roof will cause the roof texture to no longer show any detail underneath the snow, even on a steep pitched roof.
@akbdeck wrote:
The thing to remember is that at a certain point the snow accumulation on the roof will cause the roof texture to no longer show any detail underneath the snow, even on a steep pitched roof.
True. You don't need much snow before any resemblance of the roof structure is completely gone.
I've opted for relatively thin snow cover - enough to cover, but not enough to completely obliterate the details. Since tiles are not as insulating as thatch, the tiled houses may show the tiles through the snow in parts where it has slumped down the roof and exposed the ridge.
I've updated the buildings so they look like this now. There's less bleaching, and more detail interest on both.
I prefer the new buildings since I can see some of the detail undernearth.
FYI, my wife really liked the nighttime image you posted.
Thank you :)
The night version may be several months away yet. There is a bit of work to be done before I can finish that one.
Hey @Loopysue ! It is already wonderful! Snow effect looks super cool as well as the new roofs!
I toss some suggestions as they come to my mind. You may probably already have thought about it. And some may be stupid 😅. And may be more useful for a dungeon style... Anyway, I list them (otherwise I'll forget) and you can ignore them 😉. Maybe they will be more useful later on.
Thanks for the great job!
Hi AleD :)
Thank you very much.
Some of your suggestions are, as you suspected, more appropriate for a dungeon scale style, but I will remember them ;)
There is a Frozen mud texture, which can be seen in the sample as that darker ring in the middle of the house ring. I can do a more muddy version of it perhaps?
You are welcome!
Yes, I was thinking about some brown-muddish dirty stain... Something like the splashes that wagons and horses could do when entering a pool on a not paved road.🐎🛷
If you are looking for this to add,
Yellow snow
Snowman
Stacks of firewood
Sleigh tracks for overland paths
Reindeer
I think some of those things might also fall under the category of dungeon scale mapping, but I will add them to the growing list.
I have cart tracks on a dedicated sheet just above the road sheet. You could quite easily use those and adjust the sheet effects to make them more like sleigh tracks.
those look great, too! 🤩
Thank you, AleD :)
What is the possibility of having both styles of building? The snowy roofs with and without texture. I ask because when I look at the samples the snow cover on the ground implies enough snow to have no textures on the roofs. Your cart tracks example just reinforces that feeling for me. I would use the textured roofs if I was doing a map that started showing snow melt. It’s all personnel choice but it would be nice to have the option of both types of buildings with snow cover if possible.
We can do that - yes :)
Thank you that would be great