I'm working on a slightly better one than the old wavy pattern, but when I say working on it I'm not sure yet what it will look like.

At the moment it's just a flat colour.

This week, Ralf has rebooked the session that was cancelled in mid-May, and will be using the Cities of Schley style from Symbol Set 5 to create a detailed village map, showing off the style's options for a rural setting.

Come join us live for the chat and a chance to ask questions here on the day*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj6KlhN3tlQ

Or watch it later here on the forum if you prefer.

*This thread isn't monitored during the live show, but you can add further questions and comments to it if you miss the date.

Join Ralf for tomorrow's live mapping session for a look at the latest Cartographer's Annual issue, which expands his beautiful Fantasy Hand-drawn overland style.

Join the live chat on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvANWTdbpHI

Or watch it here on the forum*

This thread isn't monitored during the show, but is a place where you can chat, ask questions and compare notes.

Thinking about the first look, and glancing at the edge of my current monitor a couple of additional sheets would do it. In this example (originally MS Overland which I know all users have) I have added an INNER BORDER and OUTER FRAME sheet setup and drawn a shape on each to represent those parts. Both are on the SCREEN layer.

The 'monitor off' background is just a grey polygon on the BACKGROUND sheet, which I moved to the MAP BORDER layer and resized to include the border and frame details for an automatic export of the whole. I then froze the MAP BORDER and SCREEN layers as is my habit.

I hope this gives you a few ideas.

I'm not sure what you are after with the second look.

You have to be a member of the Cartographer's Guild to see those, but I get what you are saying. It wouldn't be right to snatch them and paste them here either, I don't think.

So your second look is a very lose general description. I would experiment with various combinations of shapes, colours and effects and see what you come up with, using sheets above the SCREEN and being mindful of where the thin green line of the MAP BORDER lies to include the decoration.

It's the start of a new month, so Ralf will be showing off the latest Cartographer's Annual issue in the live mapping session tomorrow. We hope you can join us!

Come watch it live on YouTube and join in the chat to ask your own questions here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L7cjQY2m2c

Or you can watch it at any time either on YouTube or here on the forum*

* This thread isn't monitored during the live mapping session, but is a place where you can discuss and comment on the show at any time.

Maybe we should inscribe everything on clay tablets. They seem to last the longest.

This might help. The difference between a plateau, a mesa and a butte is one of scale alone, and mesas may be a huge range of sizes.

A plateau may be thousands of square miles in area and is usually flattish on top, while a mesa is an eroded section of a plateau that has cliffs all around it. Mesas are wider than they are tall. A butte is an eroded mesa, much smaller, and usually taller than it is wide.

You're welcome :)

There are a couple of other tips you might want to bear in mind that I don't think were mentioned in the live stream.

The biggest one is about the tone of the colours in the image part of the symbol. If you look at the PF assets you will see that the majority of roofs have mid tone colours. These work best with map files since the shading and highlighting will never take the colour past 0,0,0 (black), or 255, 255, 255 (white). Where there are black lines, such as the ink lines in the SS5 roof images, it's best to erase the map file to prevent strange side effects in the finished symbol. Ralf demonstrated how to do this using a selection mask in the video. The point of mentioning it again here is to say that very dark or very light roof images won't necessarily look as fabulous as you thought they would.

Another reasonably important tip is to try and give the image reasonably sharp edges if you can at the resolution you create them. This will reduce the likelihood of any ghosting around the edges in your maps.

Hi everyone! :)

I haven't been able to post the video link in this thread the usual way this time, but the live mapping session will still happen tomorrow. The unexpected upshot of this glitch is that I don't have to repeat Ralf's words:

Come along and join the show to ask your questions and make suggestions, or you can continue the discussion after the event in this thread.