Slightly later than I'd hoped for the eighth main update on this map, although Day 250 of 2023 seems an apt moment to present it at least, particularly as just this morning, I completed the draft notes for area 360, the final one in this mapping project! Getting those notes typed-up still lags some way behind (at area 310), so the map and notes won't be going into the Atlas right away. The end is in sight, however!

While there may be (hopefully only minor) changes needed to the map after this, during checking of the text, or as other things occur, this is likely to be close to the final version now:

From this, it's clear I finally got round to adding the title and a key for the more recurrent mapped elements, and also moved the North pointer and scaling note off the map entirely. I decided too to make the colouring of the title and header labels a pale cream, the same pale cream this style uses for its drawing window background, and which, in preparing the map for the Forum, I've also used as a thin "map border" of sorts. This header-colouring usage helps draw my eye (at least) into the map, making clear which items are peripheral to the map itself.

I've not prepared any additional close-up map or PDF notes to add here today, since the final version will be ready relatively soon anyway, although I have updated my Gallery image for this map now, to a higher res version of this near-final one.

All being well, the next update should be the Atlas submission one!

I actually rather liked the look of the original map; there's a clarity to it that sometimes gets lost with the fancier non-vector styles. I may have made similar comments before though 😉😁!

Thinking about the late-stream discussion regarding using the "normal" Mike Schley city symbols to create a top-down map, and then the isometric ones to show a pictorial impression of the place on the same map, with Ralf's comment about using vignettes to highlight important individual places within the settlement similarly, brought to mind the Middle Earth poster map prepared by Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's only approved artist during his lifetime). Digging around online, I've come up with this reasonably high-res version of the original on the Museoteca website, which shows why it came to mind. I used to have a copy of the poster, sadly lost somewhere along the decades since, though it remains strong in my memory!

Day 200 of 2023 seemed an apt moment for a fresh update on this project, so here we are, whole map first:

Further tweaking of labels and minor map features has proceeded apace since my late June update, and the type-up of my notes is in the early part of the University, area 259, currently, while the hand-scrawled preparatory notes are nearing the end of the Manufacturing District, area 293. Still a way from the area 360 end, but well up on the area 200 the day per area idea might have indicated otherwise 😁. (And yes, I STILL haven't got round to adding a symbol key or map title...)

For today's closer look, following last month's minor temptational mention, we have the extracted PDF notes for the less-well-off living areas of the Hall in The Dell, areas 191-224:

All being well, still more to follow!

Meanwhile elsewhere, most folks I'm aware of who were trying the D23 project seem to have been struggling to continue it of late. Some recent discussions on one of my more active Discords, where D23 was A Thing earlier, have indicated no one there's still persisting unfortunately, although a couple of folks on a separate Discord server were still posting occasional updates into early July at least. Certainly, having the base map and ideas for every area randomly generated in advance, as I did, seems to have helped keep my attention focused at least, so that might be a way to go for anyone contemplating something similar later this year or next, or on a smaller scale, for instance.

Must admit, I was getting slight déjà vu feelings watching Ralf's livestream yesterday, as parts of it reminded me of my Wyvern Citadel maps for the Community Atlas. Very different scale of course, but there are inevitable similarities for drawing anything set on a craggy hilltop in this kind of more realistic style.

I made much more use of symbols however, rather than drawn polygons, for the cliffsides, though I did experiment that way originally (see this post in my Forum notes on the Citadel map, while still in progress). Just couldn't get the bevelled polygons to look right though, so switched to a technique developed for battlemat cliffs by another of our resident mapping experts, Shessar, as described via the Forum post here. As ever with CC3 mapping, there are always different methods to try!

Looking forward to Part 2 of this video, to see how it all develops. Anyone would think Ralf was running a game set in Middle Earth...😉