That's my favourite tool, Dogtag. I use it all the time - draw a line around the area - convert the path to a polygon... etc. I only used what I call the straight line and perfect curve tools if I need to do something like that temple on Merelan City. I'm really not sure whether its a good or a bad thing that you can't tell! LOL!
Maybe my hand drawn lines are just so jagged that they look like straight ones that have been deliberately fractalized!
I'm itching to ask you - why do you find it so awkward?
I can't speak for Dogtag, but I almost never use it myself, I never find a way to draw a line that looks like what I want with it (Which mirrors my issues in the physical world, given a pencil and paper, I can never make it draw a line the way I want [Unless I simply hand the drawing utensils over to one of my sisters, but that requires a bit of travel]). And, it requires the use of a mouse, all the other tools I can simply enter coordinates on the command line and use modifiers (like attach) to get precise placement. I can even use math right on the command line to get things exactly as I want.
Posted By: DogtagAnd even then maybe not, as far as I'm concerned, depending on the topic/conversation.
True, I just needed to write a specific time to make the sentence effective, but lots of topics can wait for days without calling it a delay.
It must just be the difference in style - individual style, I mean.
I don't know if anyone else experienced it, but about 5 minutes ago, I lost contact with every open page in my browser except gmail. I couldn't get anything I tried, whether it was my bank, my electricity supplier, or BBC Radio 4, even though my mobile broadband was 100% and gmail was no problem at all.
I thought for a moment that one of the web servers must have gone down, but we're all back again now.
Weird!
If I suddenly seem to go rather quiet it might just have happened again.
LOL! FWIW, I wouldn't know if you "suddenly seem to go rather quiet." I'm just not on that much. And, as you and I already discussed, I don't even subscribe to any forums, at least not regularly. I've already been on the forum far more than usual today. Ha ha ha ha!
As for the Freehand Sketch tool, I can't remember the last time I bothered with it. I don't use it for a number of reasons but, probably the main one, is that I use a [optical] mouse and it simply isn't designed for drawing.
Ooooh! So its the mouse that's jittery, and not my hand!!!!
Aaaaah. I think I need to save a few pennies and go get something else.... but what other options do I have, in terms of mice? Aren't they all optical nowadays?
Maybe something like this. I found it with a quick search on US Amazon. I couldn't find it on amazon.co.uk but maybe it's available from some other vendor. It appears to be an optical mouse in pen form. *shrug* There are probably other options, too.
Sue: No problems here, and I've been trying to source a handful of webpages in regard to your comments about the Lindisfarne Gospels for half an hour or so around your previous message timing.
Yes, you were correct about the use of tempera for the coloured illustrations in them, though I suspect it had less to do with what would cause problems on the parchment, but more what was the standard painting medium available for such work at the time (late 7th century). There's a handy summary about the Gospels on Wikipedia. If you - or anyone else here - is keen to get a closer look at the Gospels, there's also a Turning the Pages virtual edition here on the British Library website which allows access to every page, and has modern annotations you can view simultaneously, but on which the zoom-in is limited, or you can access the work in an alternative facsimile format which allows massive zooming-in (to the point where you can see how the ink has run from the edge of individual letters into minor indentations the parchment surface) via this BL portal page. I've seen the original manuscript on display a couple of times, and they never let you get this close to it!
And just in case anyone might want to find out more, there also a handy Wikipedia page on Tempera.
Returning to your task at hand, I think treating this item as on paper makes good sense, and I like the sound of your ideas to reduce the colour palette, given the circumstances of the author. I'd also go along with the comments by Dogtag and Monsen, that given those circumstances, something rather less tidy and clear would seem more appropriate. This is the point you really wish those handwriting fonts looked - well, more like hasty handwriting! There's a challenge; creating a font that would provide the kind of individual letter variations CC3/3+ provides for trees, hills, etc. [Please note I am NOT volunteering to try to do this...]
That is a fascinating study, and thank you for carrying it out - a lot of very useful and interesting links in there
I'm hoping that this is more like the sort of hurried map you might expect - given the circumstances and the fact that realistically the poor fellow only has enough time to write words for features instead of draw them, and only one pot of writing ink to dilute with rainwater from that pool I mentioned.
@Sue, so this gentleman was on a cartographic survey of the region? Was he commissioned by someone powerful to do so? The Crown, A wealthy merchant prince, A society of some sort? He seems more on a quest for knowledge than treasure. May we know more of his backstory?
Since this story was born on the forum the moment I made the first post on this thread, and has already had something of a community involvement in its creation, I was kind of hoping you or someone else could tell me that.
In my mind he's a bit like Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, in that he's the sort of man who might say something like "Because it was there", or "Because I could", if you asked him why he did a thing... but someone else might know better
It is definitely looking much better. I do however wish to question your use of filled areas. For such a map, I would expect an edge striping effect to symbolize the sea instead, like what is used here
Oh that's rather nice, Remy. Is that one of the CC3 styles? An annual perhaps?
There's a lot more texture to the background in that one as well, but I think its a genuine parchment texture, rather than the paper we have already decided mine must be.
This is very probably a quirk of my personal taste, but I've never been really all that fond of edge striping. Maybe its because parallel lines and spotty patterns do something very weird to my visual perceptions and make me feel rather strange.
I'll do an alternative version and see what it looks like.
Yes, it is from an example map from the 2015 annual.
I agree, I am not too fond of edge striping in general, but the reason I am suggesting it is because to me, filled areas doesn't really make sense to me in your map, based on the description of it. Filling is something an artist with time on their side and a good working table do, not on a hastily drawn map on a help me letter. And edge striping is an alternate way of being able to distinguish sea from land without fills. I prefer broken edge lines around parts of the coast as opposed to the whole ones you see here though. Another way to distinguish water from land is to draw a few wave symbols on the water.
Note that I do think your map looks very nice in the last image, it just doesn't fit the situation IMHO.
Whichever style you use, it would seem a backstory could be had for each style. For instance possibly he was in fact a kingdom cartographer and artist, and in his struggles and adventure the one thing he prized most was his set of precious inks. Upon the happenstance of being held prisoner by a vile green dragon with no hope of escape, he retreated in his mind to a melancholy state and sat lovingly crafting one of his greatest maps ever regressing from the reality of his situation.
However this goes, it is very interesting to hear all the great feedback from everyone regarding history, storyline and just general support. So far this forum has been the exception from the rule of trolls and bemoaning this and that. A very refreshing escape for me...maybe I should retreat and make a beautiful map....now where did those CC3 ink tools go?
You know... I'm going to have to start getting the annuals
I didn't think the shading was that much to ask of him, but then, I've painted things all my life and giving something a quick lick of shade by brush has always been quicker for me than drawing something with lines.
I tried hachures, but they were just far too 'busy' - parallel lines again, and ones that actually made me feel slightly ill! the Ordnance Survey used to used them at 1:10,000 (see attached extract of part of Hampshire, 1810), but they dumped the style pretty quickly in favour of contours. They're stunning maps to look at, but only for a couple of minutes at a time in my case, or I start to feel inexplicably nauseous. My cousin, who is a GP, suggested that there might be some kind of temporal epilepsy going on that was being somehow visually stimulated.
I'll have another think about the top down part of the map, but I'm not going to ditch the shading in this version. I'll keep it to one side, and may do several variations on the theme
The other thing that's going to be really strange for some people is that the map will transform as it goes around the U shape (yes - 'round the bend') and become an ISO view. It's going to be deliberately mind-warping :P
Since this story was born on the forum the moment I made the first post on this thread, and has already had something of a community involvement in its creation, I was kind of hoping you or someone else could tell me that.
In my mind he's a bit like Edmund Hillary, in that he's the sort of bored rich man who might say something like "Because it was there", or "Because I could", if you asked him why he did a thing... but someone else might know better
Well, Hillary was an adventurer that's for certain. He was one of the few people who has been to the top of Everest (and many other mountains in Nepal) as well as the two poles.
Hillary always believed that teamwork was crucial for ascending the mountain, and he was very harsh on people who thought only of getting to the top of Everest "I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say good morning and pass on by".
Quoted from the Wikipedia
Public recognition[edit]
On 6 June 1953 Hillary was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire and received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal the same year;[25] and on 6 February 1987 was the fourth appointee to the Order of New Zealand.[49] On 22 April 1995 Hillary was appointed Knight Companion of The Most Noble Order of the Garter.[50][51] The Government of India conferred on him its second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, posthumously, in 2008.[52] He was also awarded the Polar Medal in 1958 for his part in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition,[53][54] and the Order of Gorkha Dakshina Bahu, 1st Class of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1953 and the Coronation Medal in 1975.[55]
So he was an extremely cautious and adventurous individual. He worked on planning any expeditions he mounted very carefully. So the unknown adventurer becomes a strong, capable individual with a rich history of teamwork so he works well in groups, a careful planner who sizes up his risks and takes appropriate precautions. Decorated by the Crown for his achievements; he probably belongs to a group like a cartographic society trying to map the unknown and dangerous territory for the benefit of his country. He would tend to hire well armed and armored expeditions rather like Lewis and Clark in America. He could live off the land, and could probably teach others to do the same rather like Davy Crockett.
All-in-all I would say he's more like Alan Quartermain than like Watson!
@ Nacon4 (Ed) - That's really odd, because I edited that post to "Sir Edmund Percival Hillary" and removed the reference to bored rich men (which he wasn't) before I started on the last post I made, which means we must all be posting at the same time and taking variously different lengths of time to compose our writings! LOL
I agree with you that our man is probably more of an Alan Quartermain, but he works alone, and is his own man, so he may have a few unique quirks that are yet to be revealed.
@ Bill - I think I was busy composing my response to Remy and didn't see yours until I had already posted mine. Whether the story should be bent to fit the map, or the map the story, is one of those chicken and egg things - especially since both of them were born the moment I started this thread - at the very same time. I'm coming down in favour of the more limited monochromatic one pot of ink, a quill, a brush and a journal, which might be reasonably included in the personal things in the shouldered carryall he managed to snatch back in the moment of disaster.
As for the forum? We're all really quite friendly, and there's a lovely atmosphere here
Sue: Appreciating this may not be the way you wish to take, but I'd be inclined to rethink the map more along the lines a 19th century cartographer would have used to indicate a route he'd followed. That is, a drawing that shows only those items on and immediately adjacent to the course (with a few key landmarks more distant - distinctive hilltops, for instance - which might be needed to confirm directions), and similarly restrict the labels to just the essentials (warnings, distinctive landmarks and direction changes). So in this case, the river is obviously the key initial route, and while tributary stream junctions would be shown, extending all of them back to their headwaters probably wouldn't be done. Similarly, hills might be shown graphically, but where speed is important, again maybe restricted to just the word "Hills" written where they are. You might find the couple of small sample illustrations to the May '09 Cartographer's Annual webpage useful for the kind of idea I mean (Allyn Bowker's antique strip map CC3 mapping style). I also quickly found this example from 1675 on Wikimedia Commons (I've given this webpage link so you can find a legible version!):
I'd also think it helpful to make sure any really important places mentioned in the text are also shown on the map. Is the Orranar River easily identifiable along the Nochay coast, or might its mouth be mistaken for other inlets nearby (that "Anchorage", for example)? Is the great explorer's ship still (meant to be) anchored there? If so, maybe it should be shown in the sketch. That sort of thing.
Please feel free to ignore all this though, given how much work you've already done!
I will certainly not ignore all your very hard work.
The links are fascinating, and what you write is very interesting stuff. These ribbon maps are indeed very beautiful to look at.
My map is already distorted to a certain extent, since the journey is more or less a straight line from coast to Sheleeva's cavern - eastwards, not south, then east, then north. I may need to adjust the wording of the letter to make that a bit clearer, but in a sense it is already a ribbon-like route map, though not arranged in parallel ribbons
I could box each of the three sections to make that a bit clearer, and add a mini compass to each section. I'll think about that.
You have a really good point about the ships and the anchorage. The truth is I just didn't think about it! LOL
That 18th Century walker does seem to have to walk right over the summit of an inordinate number of hills, doesn't he!
Personally, it still looks like a commercially-produced or artistically-rendered map to me. Nothing I would expect scribbled on the back of a journal in a hurry, where each stroke of the pen might be the author's last. It's just too elegant and clean, to me. This must be killing you, trying to turn off "Rembrandt" mode and switch to "please, God, let me finish this and hope it makes sense" mode.
For example, I would never expect anyone in Arramatapo's father's predicament to bother with contour lines or, especially, shading unless it was necessary to separate one element from another or depict a huge difference in terrain, such as water from land. And, even in that case, I'd expect some hashing or other simple but effective line drawing technique to accomplish it. I'd expect hills to be depicted by a handful of symbols at most but, if he absolutely had to draw contour lines, I can't begin to imagine any painting to depict depth and shadows. Especially since that would mean switching from quill to brush, and all the prep that entails (getting a good surface, preparing the ink/ink wash, etc.). Plenty of time for the dragon to decide it was time for a nosh. All the real maps folks have posted above were done by cartographers with time on their hands and, I presume, without an ill-tempered, fire-breathing, creature of legend out to make them into a tea time snack.
Still this is all just my opinion, so there's that.
Rembrandt Mode? ROFL I'll have to add that to the growing list - along with "Stupid mode", "Spreadsheet mode", "Stubborn mode"... etc.
Ok. He's not in immediate danger. Although he's trapped, the dragon can't get into the relatively tiny nook he's crawled into, and there is a small hole in the roof that he can't reach, but through which the water in his pool is constantly being refreshed. His greatest danger is of starving to death, but a man can last several weeks without food, and there are always the rats that infest a dragon's lair - eating all the left overs... Its the water that would be a problem if he didn't have the pool, and the pool itself draws in the rats, which are potentially food - when he gets desperate enough to start eating them.
I've created a 'lumpy' fill with variable transparency to imitate the effect of working with writing ink as a wash on reasonable quality paper from the relatively well protected inside of a gentleman's journal.
He might be afraid and desperate, but this might also be the last point of contact he has with a son whom he loves very much, and whom he probably will never see again in this life. In a situation like that there are men who would just scribble like crazy, and there are men who would take the greatest of pains to convey their unspoken love through the beauty of their work, knowing how the boy will always value this last message, no matter how tragic its words.
Weeell...
Ok... I can see your point of view, and I know I'm probably making it far too nice and pretty! LOL! But the best way forward for me right now is to just finish the map in this style, then do a new version in a rougher style, perhaps using some of Jim's symbols, or making it more of a ribbon map, or even combining the two into one thing - a ribbon map full of Jim's symbols.
A quickie created by deleting quite a lot of the hand drawn stuff and replacing it with standard colour variable symbols from the CC3+ Herwin Wielink style - my favourite CC3+ style.
More versions to follow over the next few days, but this is probably the most hybrid version, combining hand drawn lines and features (the ravine and bridge are mine), home made textures (mine), and standard symbols - CC3+.
Ok. Tell me whether you prefer Version 01 (previous image post), or Version 02 so far
Comments
Maybe my hand drawn lines are just so jagged that they look like straight ones that have been deliberately fractalized!
I'm itching to ask you - why do you find it so awkward?
True, I just needed to write a specific time to make the sentence effective, but lots of topics can wait for days without calling it a delay.
I don't know if anyone else experienced it, but about 5 minutes ago, I lost contact with every open page in my browser except gmail. I couldn't get anything I tried, whether it was my bank, my electricity supplier, or BBC Radio 4, even though my mobile broadband was 100% and gmail was no problem at all.
I thought for a moment that one of the web servers must have gone down, but we're all back again now.
Weird!
If I suddenly seem to go rather quiet it might just have happened again.
Aaaaah. I think I need to save a few pennies and go get something else.... but what other options do I have, in terms of mice? Aren't they all optical nowadays?
I'm just going off to look at the hundreds of similar things available on this side of the pond, and may be some time
Yes, you were correct about the use of tempera for the coloured illustrations in them, though I suspect it had less to do with what would cause problems on the parchment, but more what was the standard painting medium available for such work at the time (late 7th century). There's a handy summary about the Gospels on Wikipedia. If you - or anyone else here - is keen to get a closer look at the Gospels, there's also a Turning the Pages virtual edition here on the British Library website which allows access to every page, and has modern annotations you can view simultaneously, but on which the zoom-in is limited, or you can access the work in an alternative facsimile format which allows massive zooming-in (to the point where you can see how the ink has run from the edge of individual letters into minor indentations the parchment surface) via this BL portal page. I've seen the original manuscript on display a couple of times, and they never let you get this close to it!
And just in case anyone might want to find out more, there also a handy Wikipedia page on Tempera.
Returning to your task at hand, I think treating this item as on paper makes good sense, and I like the sound of your ideas to reduce the colour palette, given the circumstances of the author. I'd also go along with the comments by Dogtag and Monsen, that given those circumstances, something rather less tidy and clear would seem more appropriate. This is the point you really wish those handwriting fonts looked - well, more like hasty handwriting! There's a challenge; creating a font that would provide the kind of individual letter variations CC3/3+ provides for trees, hills, etc. [Please note I am NOT volunteering to try to do this...]
That is a fascinating study, and thank you for carrying it out - a lot of very useful and interesting links in there
I'm hoping that this is more like the sort of hurried map you might expect - given the circumstances and the fact that realistically the poor fellow only has enough time to write words for features instead of draw them, and only one pot of writing ink to dilute with rainwater from that pool I mentioned.
The larger version is here:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=35653&p=316341&viewfull=1#post316341
Respectfully,
LLAP
Nacon4
Since this story was born on the forum the moment I made the first post on this thread, and has already had something of a community involvement in its creation, I was kind of hoping you or someone else could tell me that.
In my mind he's a bit like Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, in that he's the sort of man who might say something like "Because it was there", or "Because I could", if you asked him why he did a thing... but someone else might know better
There's a lot more texture to the background in that one as well, but I think its a genuine parchment texture, rather than the paper we have already decided mine must be.
This is very probably a quirk of my personal taste, but I've never been really all that fond of edge striping. Maybe its because parallel lines and spotty patterns do something very weird to my visual perceptions and make me feel rather strange.
I'll do an alternative version and see what it looks like.
I agree, I am not too fond of edge striping in general, but the reason I am suggesting it is because to me, filled areas doesn't really make sense to me in your map, based on the description of it. Filling is something an artist with time on their side and a good working table do, not on a hastily drawn map on a help me letter. And edge striping is an alternate way of being able to distinguish sea from land without fills. I prefer broken edge lines around parts of the coast as opposed to the whole ones you see here though.
Another way to distinguish water from land is to draw a few wave symbols on the water.
Note that I do think your map looks very nice in the last image, it just doesn't fit the situation IMHO.
However this goes, it is very interesting to hear all the great feedback from everyone regarding history, storyline and just general support. So far this forum has been the exception from the rule of trolls and bemoaning this and that. A very refreshing escape for me...maybe I should retreat and make a beautiful map....now where did those CC3 ink tools go?
Bill
I didn't think the shading was that much to ask of him, but then, I've painted things all my life and giving something a quick lick of shade by brush has always been quicker for me than drawing something with lines.
I tried hachures, but they were just far too 'busy' - parallel lines again, and ones that actually made me feel slightly ill! the Ordnance Survey used to used them at 1:10,000 (see attached extract of part of Hampshire, 1810), but they dumped the style pretty quickly in favour of contours. They're stunning maps to look at, but only for a couple of minutes at a time in my case, or I start to feel inexplicably nauseous. My cousin, who is a GP, suggested that there might be some kind of temporal epilepsy going on that was being somehow visually stimulated.
I'll have another think about the top down part of the map, but I'm not going to ditch the shading in this version. I'll keep it to one side, and may do several variations on the theme
The other thing that's going to be really strange for some people is that the map will transform as it goes around the U shape (yes - 'round the bend') and become an ISO view. It's going to be deliberately mind-warping :P
Hillary always believed that teamwork was crucial for ascending the mountain, and he was very harsh on people who thought only of getting to the top of Everest "I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say good morning and pass on by".
Quoted from the Wikipedia
Public recognition[edit]
On 6 June 1953 Hillary was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire and received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal the same year;[25] and on 6 February 1987 was the fourth appointee to the Order of New Zealand.[49] On 22 April 1995 Hillary was appointed Knight Companion of The Most Noble Order of the Garter.[50][51] The Government of India conferred on him its second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, posthumously, in 2008.[52] He was also awarded the Polar Medal in 1958 for his part in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition,[53][54] and the Order of Gorkha Dakshina Bahu, 1st Class of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1953 and the Coronation Medal in 1975.[55]
So he was an extremely cautious and adventurous individual. He worked on planning any expeditions he mounted very carefully. So the unknown adventurer becomes a strong, capable individual with a rich history of teamwork so he works well in groups, a careful planner who sizes up his risks and takes appropriate precautions. Decorated by the Crown for his achievements; he probably belongs to a group like a cartographic society trying to map the unknown and dangerous territory for the benefit of his country. He would tend to hire well armed and armored expeditions rather like Lewis and Clark in America. He could live off the land, and could probably teach others to do the same rather like Davy Crockett.
All-in-all I would say he's more like Alan Quartermain than like Watson!
How's that?
LLAP
Nacon4
I agree with you that our man is probably more of an Alan Quartermain, but he works alone, and is his own man, so he may have a few unique quirks that are yet to be revealed.
@ Bill - I think I was busy composing my response to Remy and didn't see yours until I had already posted mine. Whether the story should be bent to fit the map, or the map the story, is one of those chicken and egg things - especially since both of them were born the moment I started this thread - at the very same time. I'm coming down in favour of the more limited monochromatic one pot of ink, a quill, a brush and a journal, which might be reasonably included in the personal things in the shouldered carryall he managed to snatch back in the moment of disaster.
As for the forum? We're all really quite friendly, and there's a lovely atmosphere here
I'd also think it helpful to make sure any really important places mentioned in the text are also shown on the map. Is the Orranar River easily identifiable along the Nochay coast, or might its mouth be mistaken for other inlets nearby (that "Anchorage", for example)? Is the great explorer's ship still (meant to be) anchored there? If so, maybe it should be shown in the sketch. That sort of thing.
Please feel free to ignore all this though, given how much work you've already done!
The links are fascinating, and what you write is very interesting stuff. These ribbon maps are indeed very beautiful to look at.
My map is already distorted to a certain extent, since the journey is more or less a straight line from coast to Sheleeva's cavern - eastwards, not south, then east, then north. I may need to adjust the wording of the letter to make that a bit clearer, but in a sense it is already a ribbon-like route map, though not arranged in parallel ribbons
I could box each of the three sections to make that a bit clearer, and add a mini compass to each section. I'll think about that.
You have a really good point about the ships and the anchorage. The truth is I just didn't think about it! LOL
That 18th Century walker does seem to have to walk right over the summit of an inordinate number of hills, doesn't he!
Thanks again for all your help and support
For example, I would never expect anyone in Arramatapo's father's predicament to bother with contour lines or, especially, shading unless it was necessary to separate one element from another or depict a huge difference in terrain, such as water from land. And, even in that case, I'd expect some hashing or other simple but effective line drawing technique to accomplish it. I'd expect hills to be depicted by a handful of symbols at most but, if he absolutely had to draw contour lines, I can't begin to imagine any painting to depict depth and shadows. Especially since that would mean switching from quill to brush, and all the prep that entails (getting a good surface, preparing the ink/ink wash, etc.). Plenty of time for the dragon to decide it was time for a nosh. All the real maps folks have posted above were done by cartographers with time on their hands and, I presume, without an ill-tempered, fire-breathing, creature of legend out to make them into a tea time snack.
Still this is all just my opinion, so there's that.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
Ok. He's not in immediate danger. Although he's trapped, the dragon can't get into the relatively tiny nook he's crawled into, and there is a small hole in the roof that he can't reach, but through which the water in his pool is constantly being refreshed. His greatest danger is of starving to death, but a man can last several weeks without food, and there are always the rats that infest a dragon's lair - eating all the left overs... Its the water that would be a problem if he didn't have the pool, and the pool itself draws in the rats, which are potentially food - when he gets desperate enough to start eating them.
I've created a 'lumpy' fill with variable transparency to imitate the effect of working with writing ink as a wash on reasonable quality paper from the relatively well protected inside of a gentleman's journal.
He might be afraid and desperate, but this might also be the last point of contact he has with a son whom he loves very much, and whom he probably will never see again in this life. In a situation like that there are men who would just scribble like crazy, and there are men who would take the greatest of pains to convey their unspoken love through the beauty of their work, knowing how the boy will always value this last message, no matter how tragic its words.
Weeell...
Ok... I can see your point of view, and I know I'm probably making it far too nice and pretty! LOL! But the best way forward for me right now is to just finish the map in this style, then do a new version in a rougher style, perhaps using some of Jim's symbols, or making it more of a ribbon map, or even combining the two into one thing - a ribbon map full of Jim's symbols.
We'll see what happens
Regardless, I look forward to the finished piece however you proceed.
Cheers
~Dogtag
https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=35653&p=316440&viewfull=1#post316440
A quickie created by deleting quite a lot of the hand drawn stuff and replacing it with standard colour variable symbols from the CC3+ Herwin Wielink style - my favourite CC3+ style.
More versions to follow over the next few days, but this is probably the most hybrid version, combining hand drawn lines and features (the ravine and bridge are mine), home made textures (mine), and standard symbols - CC3+.
Ok. Tell me whether you prefer Version 01 (previous image post), or Version 02 so far
The larger image is here: https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=35653&p=316478&viewfull=1#post316478