As mentioned recently in another Forum topic, the next of my 40 250 x 200 mile maps detailing the Errynor area of NW Alarius on Nibirum is now ready for submission to the Community Atlas. Despite becoming "distracted" into preparing more additional maps for the first Errynor map than I'd expected initially, Map 01 - The Cliff, I decided to continue with the next one in the order I'd originally intended, by switching right across the map to its opposite, lower right, corner:

Beyond that though, much of the pattern for the mapping - using the Herwin Wielink style, some Cartographer's Annual 62 Geometry varicolor symbols, the Cagliostro (from the 2017 CA), Candara and Gabriola fonts, the latter both from standard Win 10 installations - had been set already by Map 01. There were though some differences. This time, I'd be mapping the most landlocked area in Errynor, not one that was almost entirely under the sea. While that simplified the number of different map views I'd need to create, because - clue in the title "Faerie Land" - I wanted to illustrate the effects of the two overlapping realms, the Mortal one and that of Faerie, it didn't reduce them to zero.

The initial layout was fairly straightforward, and largely involved hand-copying the details from the Errynor map area above into the template for this new map, with additional items from the hand-drawn original as discussed in the "Construction" topic. There things rather stalled though, as I realised I needed to work out details on what the Faerie influence areas were going to look like and exactly where they were going to be. Plus I also suddenly had lots of features that clearly would benefit from being named.

The Faerie areas were relatively easily worked out by simply hand sketching some ideas on a tracing-paper overlay to the original squared-paper map, and I already had some feature names from my decades-long work with earlier versions of Errynor that could be reused.

However, you know me and my fondness for random design mechanisms... One of the early Judges Guild printed works I got was their "Village Book 1" tome, from 1978, and in that is a system for generating random village names. Up to 368,000 of them! The names will work perfectly well for other sorts of places too, with the addition of terms such as "Wood", "Forest", "Marsh", "River", "Brook", etc. So I rolled up a long list of possible names. Each series of rolls generates a two-part name, prefix and suffix, effectively, though you can add more parts to vary things from time to time too. Not every combination works well, as you might imagine, but the names can be subtly altered, or only one part used, or merely used as inspiration. I was pleasantly surprised to find most were actually very suitable for what I wanted; some that seemed obvious, some a little odd, some that could be humorous, some a warning, many intriguingly evocative, much like looking at a map of real-world places in fact. So here we have Map 40, complete with place names:

And a close-up of just the NE corner to show a bit better detail at the usual Forum resolution:

If all goes to plan, there should be a toggle in the Atlas FCW version to allow access to the latitude lines, and an arc indicating the southern limit of Nibirum's polar auroral zone, too:

That slightly offset-from-the-corner compass rose is to allow for the numerous creature markers and labels in that corner, as elsewhere across the map, to be shown (again, another Atlas version toggle is intended to allow these to be displayed or hidden):

Which looks rather messy at this resolution, so another close-up may help, this time over in the NW map corner:

Plus of course, there needs to be a map key as well:

The areas where the Faerie realm overlaps most strongly with that of the Mortal plane can be shown via a further pair of toggles to indicate the core areas, and the maximum extent of the overlap on a few special nights each year. The following images are of those whole-map core areas and a close-up of the separated patches west of the great Faerie Run river, followed by the line of the maximum Faerie overlap extent:

These can be shown combined with any of the other toggleable map overlays, and for anyone concerned at the lack of a scale, that's because to try to improve the resolution, I've shown just the map rectangle here till now. This is how the map really looks:

The complete layout is then this:

The Atlas will also have a 23-page PDF, and a text version, with its accompanying detailed notes, explaining a little more about the settlements and the significance of some of the creatures and resources.

I haven't quite finished with Map 40 yet either, as the River Clack valley with the great Faerie city of Embra (see the first of the detail maps above, the NE corner one, for these locations) is to receive some further mapping in the Atlas shortly too.

If what you're wanting to do is use online images to make your own vehicle trace-drawings for conversion to symbols, it's worth checking the military museum sites (especially if you're hunting for more obscure vehicles) and also scale model websites - including model kit manufacturers. A number of manufacturers now have PDFs of their kit instructions online that you can freely download, and they sometimes have illustrations showing top-down views for the paint and decal schemes for instance, which might be another starting point.

In terms of constructing the symbols, I'd suggest having a set-up where the lines, base colour, camouflage patterning and any markings are each done as a separate Sheet in CC3+ (or more likely "layers" in non-CC3 graphics programs), to make it easier to swap those for different theatres and times. Also, @Lillhans' comment about separate tank turrets is an excellent one. I'd suggest too using Sheet overlays for the top of various AFVs that have different variants using the same lower chassis and skirts, again to make those easier to swap-out without having to keep redrawing each time.

Simplest option would be to use the colour drawing tool, and then add an RGB Matrix Process Effect to the whole map, set to "Gray". This will make everything look B&W - so you could design the entire map using the colour set-up, and have it all appear as greyscale in the finished item.

In case you're unsure about adding the Effect, when you open up the Drawing Sheets and Effects dialogue box (click on the rectangle marked "S:" with the name of the current Sheet in at the top of your CC3+ drawing window), click on any Sheet, then click the "Whole Drawing" radio button above the Sheets list.

Then click "Add", select "RGB Matrix Process" from the list this will call-up, and then click to highlight the RGB Matrix Process Effect that's now been added to the Whole Drawing list.

Then click "Edit". Once you're in the RGB Matrix Process dialogue box, click "Predefined", then "Gray" from that list, and finally "OK", and then (assuming you have something already drawn on your map to check), click "Apply" to see what it does.

Good luck!

I actually did just this three days ago Sue, hence why I'm currently so informed on the subject!

You're welcome @Jeff B !

While I know some folks that comment and contribute here like to present and view Work In Progress topics, I rarely map in a way that allows this, as I tend to simply change things as I'm going along and don't record what's been done or when. It also needs extra time and effort, which is something I rarely have available either. However, when I started the second of the 40 250 x 200 mile maps for "my" corner of Alarius, that did seem a rare opportunity to try to do a bit more in this line. So while not a WIP thread as such - because the map's already completed, and will be submitted for the Atlas shortly - it may be of interest to some to have an overview of how it got to be as it is.

When I started preparing for this whole Errynor project, one of the first things I did was to set up the grid for where the 250 x 200 mile maps were going to be on Shessar's Alarius map:

I then hand-drew onto squared paper details extracted from this map for each of the planned 40, including things like where the exact lines for the different background terrain fills lay on land, where the edge of the contour-colour fills were for the sea, and so forth. Although these wouldn't be so critical for the later mapping (the edges of the fills being softened in the map as shown above here means there will always be a degree of leeway in such things), they were important for some of the more detailed features I wanted to add, such as creatures which tend to be biome-specific.

Zooming in to the Map 40 area (lowest right corner of the full gridded map above) showed what I'd be dealing with here:

The yellow line that's just peeping out from under the lowest outer orange line is for the southern limit of the Errynor mapping area (it also extends up the right-hand edge of Map 40, but is better hidden there), while the thinner white line extending south of the right-hand corner of Map 40 is because when this mapping began several years ago, the area east of Errynor had been reserved by another Atlas mapper. Ultimately, the person who was hoping to map that region had to drop out unfortunately, but Shessar subsequently stepped-in and completed part of it, although that no longer extends south to the southern edge of my Errynor area, as a comparison of where the major river (now named as the Faerie Run) lies in relation to the lowest corner of the illustrations above and below this paragraph. On the following extract from the bottom left corner of Shessar's "Alarius North Central" map, I've added a 250 x 200 mile orange rectangle for scale:

The left edge of this rectangular area immediately adjoins part of the right edge of my Map 40, and also part of Map 32 to Map 40's north.

Returning to Map 40, to the hand-drawn map of landforms and terrain features, I added randomly-rolled creatures and places using a series of tables based on ones I'd constructed decades ago, updated and amended here where that seemed necessary. The squared-paper maps had been designated so that every square would be five miles on a side, and each 5-mile square was allocated a maximum 10% chance of having something noteworthy in it at this mapping scale (variably reduced for anything less favourable than temperate surface land conditions). Of those features, about 17% - 1 in 6 - might be settlements of some sort, with a maximum 60% chance of being inhabited, or deserted/ruined otherwise, again partly condition-dependent.

All of which got me to the point where I could also begin filling-in some of the lesser terrain features based on what had been rolled-up. Settlements need a significant water supply, as would some types of creature, which allowed new river lines to be sketched-in. Certain creatures also need a lair of some kind, and that meant smaller areas of cliffs, caves, trees, marshes and lakes could be added, all again based on random rolls determined by the creatures in question. Thus the map came to look like this:

This isn't very clear at the size suitable for the Forum, and the scan I made of it has cut-off the column numbering along the top edge. This wasn't important for what I intended, as it was simply meant as the traceable background bitmap image for the CC3+ map. I can't re-scan it like this, as it's been further amended since, and indeed right into the creation of Map 40 in CC3+ changes were still being made, not all of which ended up on the hand-drawn version anyway! It is still possible though to see this is a "warts and all" sketch, with crossings-out, amendments and annotations. Even the original map isn't as clear as it might be now, and I can't remember which of the various lines represent which terrain type in places where the annotations have become too dense! Note too that the line of the map's only major river (that is, the one shown on the original Alarius map) hasn't been finalised here. It's still drawn at the scale it was, so is about ten miles wide, hence why the new tributaries end at its edge. As this also illustrates, the size of the paper means the edge of the mapped area is seven squares short of this image's right-hand edge.

Features were allocated one or two numbers as well as a written note of what each was, as I learnt early on the importance of recording these (they're the dice roll values) after making some mistakes in identifying which thing was in which terrain type, and thus what the random tables said it was meant to be... In the map's centre-top, that Yeti that became a Blood Hawk Flock with a cliff lair turned out to have been a Yeti after all, as you may be able to tell from this close-up of a later version of just the top left corner (now so you can see the top column numbers too):

If you can see some dots that don't have any annotations, or other faint markings, that's because I hand-drew all these maps on both sides of the paper, and occasionally that shows through weakly.

Selecting only the main features, such as the major settlements and ruins, as well as the new lesser watercourses and vegetation areas, was what let me build-up the final Errynor map, of which the Map 40 segment is shown below, here with its latitude lines and the southern limit for Nibirum's northern polar auroral zone (red arc). Only the cream-coloured latitude arc, for 55°N, features in the Atlas CC3+ Errynor map. The black arcs for each 1° were added in preparation for these individual 250 x 200 mile maps, and will feature there:

I'll present and discuss the final CC3+ map for the Atlas in more detail in a subsequent Forum topic. For now, merely a teaser view of the final Map 40's terrain (only) - no settlements, or creatures, or anything else. Yet!