Avatar

Wyvern

Wyvern

About

Username
Wyvern
Joined
Visits
2,457
Last Active
Roles
Member
Points
4,381
Rank
Mapmaker
Badges
23

Latest Images

  • How to draw a line with an arrow?

    Depending on what line thickness you're using, you may get a better result drawing a separate arrowhead polygon and placing it on your line. The automated arrowhead lines can look pretty unappealing, because sometimes the line-end extends beyond the tip of the arrow, as if it's been blunted.

    jmabbott
  • 1000th Map Competition: Ober, Southern Scar

    So pretty, I hardly like to mention anything!

    But as you asked...

    1 & 7 - should they both be "Oberman", or is 7 actually "Obeman"?

    Also, should the fields maybe have some kind of edging - fences, hedges, or even ditches - to keep the pedestrian herbivores out, and maybe some paths leading to them too. Those to the north seem a little detached currently.

    I might be inclined to name the bridges as well, though that's probably just me 😁.

    Shessar
  • [WIP] Community Atlas, 1,000 Maps Contest: Villages in The Whispering Wastes of Haddmark, Peredur

    Thanks very much folks!

    @jmabbott asked: In the Dungeon map, does the stippling fill come with the style (OSR Dungeons right?), or did you make it yourself?

    I explained how I'd arrived at this in the first post here earlier, and also why I'd opted to draw it this way (which is also why I've been sticking with a B&W style for all these maps too).

    The essential points though, extracted from that linked topic, are that the style is the OSR Dungeon one from Annual 97, and that: The dot-shaded look was achieved first by laying down a base smooth polygon using the "Stones" fill texture, and then adding random selections from the two "Gravel" symbols over that on a separate sheet, all placed by hand, which allowed variable densities of such shading nearer the outer wall lines, and within the design, where rock pillars had been left in the Mirror Maze section particularly. The Stones texture had to be rescaled in the drawing to better fit the size of the Gravel symbol dots, which was pretty straightforward, and the whole does give quite a nice hand-drawn-like look to the shading.

    Naturally, all I did here was to repeat that for this map. This time, I did get to play around with some of those textures for a genuine bit of the outside, as well as some plants, on the ledge to reach the front doors, however.

    jmabbottRoyal Scribe
  • WIP 1000th map competition - Bittern's Rest

    You should always map the way you want to, and you don't need to justify that to anyone except yourself!

    LoopysueRoyal Scribe
  • [WIP] Community Atlas 1000th Map Competition: Elkton, Alarius North Central

    Sure they aren't were-elks Sue? 😉

    Royal ScribeCalibre
  • Sticky Note Dungeon

    Might be worth thinking of some variants for many of the "commoner" symbols too - if it really was hand-drawn, none would be the same, after all, so the option for a few variants would be useful.

    C.C. Charron
  • Sticky Note Dungeon

    The whole concept does look amazing!

    I'm not sure about the shadows on the symbols, however. It's rather breaking the illusion for me, as they wouldn't be there on the real thing. Or rather they might be, but in a different way - where the drawn lines are all slightly indented into the paper surface.

    Can the paper colour for the sticky notes be changed easily? I know there are some sticky note pads in colours other than yellow now, so that might be interesting to explore as well - maybe the boss chamber would be more helpful on a pink/red sheet, for instance, as a GM's reminder (again if this were the real thing).

    Loopysue
  • [WIP] Kingdom of Gongodûr

    @Calibre asked: Now, tell me why those mountain ranges are as they are...

    Geology! You can find an explanation for any landform that way if you hunt long and hard enough (speaking as a once-upon geologist)!

    Royal ScribeCalibre
  • [WIP] Kingdom of Gongodûr

    It can be difficult sometimes to tell what a much larger area map is really showing when you start to drill down to try and provide more detail. I often look at things like symbol titles and fill/drawing tool names where there aren't more detailed map notes (and I discovered at least one earlier Atlas map where the map notes were hidden off to one side of the map - by quite some distance, and on a hidden layer; I assume this was before things were standardised to have the text-file map notes attached separately, and as a PDF in many cases).

    In the end, it's best to design what seems interesting to you that doesn't contradict whatever was shown on the larger regional map, which pretty much seems to be what you have done!

    Royal ScribeCalibre
  • [WIP] Atlas Contest - Yréas Kóltyn Village (Kingdom of Enía, Gold Coast region of Dóriant)

    You can always conceal the missing bends and corners with trees next time, of course, but this does look more natural now.

    One option for having a more "realistically" vegetated treehouse settlement would be to layer the canopy cover, and use map toggles to hide various of the layers as you descend through - including to show the forest floor as you have done this time, ultimately. This needn't be too complex, as a simple upper level of tree cover might be the only additional layer you'd need. That could hide everything, as it would be with a solid forest cover. Then toggle that top layer off to reveal the main houses and walkways (much as you have here), still with the missing walkway bends "hidden" by the next level down of the canopy trees.

    In terms of those bends, I haven't tried, but at this kind of overall map scale, you might get away with artificially shortening some of the walkway segments by using separate X and Y scaling for the symbols, and using each short symbol as one little part of an arc. You would have to overlap the part of the inner areas on the curves too, so again an experiment to try would be advisable first. It may not work, of course, and probably wouldn't once zoomed-in even a little, but it could be worth trying.

    Loopysue