The works of Hattam Reyes, scrivener of the Ancients, the, not really mad, but ...

[ThomasR]

... slightly unhinged archeologist.

Long title isn't it ?

Hattam Reyes is my avatar is J.Edward's marvelous The Ward of Chiezbehrg and while I was working on my "torn parchment" skills, once again inspired by John's work, I decided to further and expand the GuildWorld/GuildCity adventure. Playing and experimenting with various styles I chose to keep that parchment look and do a bunch of maps supposed to have been drawn by Hattam Reyes (John was, as always, nice enough to give me permission to use this fellow). At first, I wanted to present it as an exhibition showing strange maps thought to have been drawn by the Mad Mapmaker (yay uppercases !) and I may not have abandoned the idea but I also realized that the files were heavy and would require several posts. In order not to pollute the Finished Maps subforum with a bunch of maps so, I'll gather them here.

The first one can be found here and below are three others. I still need to finish a fourth plus my big one, an A3 map, torn in four parts with each part necessary to find a treasure or else (it's still in the making). Almost all of these maps have already been shown in my sketch thread but I wanted to rework them. They're also all hand drawn maps.

As always, critics and comments are more than welcome.

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The first map is supposed to reveal the location of the fabled Worm Plains while for the second one, experts stand divided. Some think it shows the Mountains of Madness while others talk about the Candy Mountains. The confusion could likely be explained by Hatam Reyes awful hand writing.

And my latest challenge map :



It shows the fairy land of Bogia where rivers are streams of IPA and the forests give extra crispy bacon grease coated grilled almonds and such delicacies. Bogia translates to "Apéroland" according to Hattam Reyes notes at the back of the map ... this one confuses the scholars ("Apéro" or "apéritif" in french is the time, before the meal when people friendly share some alcoholic beverages and salty snacks in order to open one's appetite).

[Voolf]

Gosh Thom, you have to handle your maps with more care, they are always so torn!

Great stuff

[Ilanthar]

By ThomasR
Long title isn't it ?

Yeah, sometimes I'm cursing cartographers who are doing maps with a very, very long title (for CCs, for example)... but being often one of them, it does not last .
Nice set! I especially like the challenge map, I must say. This Hattam Reyes is a very productive cartographer, no doubt!

[Arimel]

I always love this style of map. Do you by any chance have a WIP thread to a map you have done in this style so I can follow your progress steps to creating beautiful maps like this?

Also, you said the map was handdrawn, does that include hand colored/painted/etc.?

I also really like the idea of creating the fantasy mapper who create the maps.

[ThomasR]

Gosh Thom, you have to handle your maps with more care, they are always so torn!

Great stuff

What can I say, my daughter loves veal and mistakes it for velum ... And thanks Rafal

Yeah, sometimes I'm cursing cartographers who are doing maps with a very, very long title (for CCs, for example)... but being often one of them, it does not last .
Nice set! I especially like the challenge map, I must say. This Hattam Reyes is a very productive cartographer, no doubt!

Thanks Julien About Bogia, I almost regret having gone for so much color and gold... I became a bit obsessed with getting the parchment right so, I drew some ... they needed maps then.

I always love this style of map. Do you by any chance have a WIP thread to a map you have done in this style so I can follow your progress steps to creating beautiful maps like this?

Also, you said the map was handdrawn, does that include hand colored/painted/etc.?

I also really like the idea of creating the fantasy mapper who create the maps.

Glad you like them Arimel Unfortunately, I do not have a WIP thread with those border in the making. I learned to do them by studying J.Edward's ones and others. The rest of the maps is pretty classic in the making. If you have any specific question, do not hesitate to ask, I'll be happy to help you. In the meantime, a few advices about the borders.

- For the outline, randomly draw an uneven shape with hints of tears (4 px for digital, 0.1 pen for hand drawn). Pencil first then ink or use a rough first layer then draw on another one and drop the sketch.
- For the details, use the same brush with lowered flow (65%) and size (3 px) for digital. With a pen, 0.05 or 0.03. In both cases, use a light touch and for the pen, avoid the full lines and prefer dots or transversal dashes hinting for the line.
- Digital : Scan, throw a parchment below, crop the parts outside of your drawing and use an overlay layer (above the parchment background but below the linework) to add highlights (white) and shades (black). Last, use a grunge/cloud/splatter brush at low opacity to add the stains with another overlay or soft light layer.
- Hand drawn : use some alcohol based markers to add the darkened parts (I use a n° 3 warm grey copic for the tears and a n°3 cold grey for the cast shadow and any marker will do, not just copics). If you are good with these (and I'm not), you can do the whole parchment by hand, blending colors.

You can add holes, simple ones near the border, more like tears with several stress direction in the middle. If you wanna study one closer, you can find one in this thread or explore my other threads for more examples. If you want something more detailed, again, do not hesitate to ask.

A little precision, the first map was a tribute to Richard Whitters (senior art director at WotC and amazing artist).

[Arimel]

Thanks for the details Thomas R. This was more information than I had even hoped for. I still have a few questions though if you dont mind.

-On your second bullet point you say: "With a pen, 0.05 or 0.03". I assume you are not actually talking about the size in mm of the pen but the number used to represent this (the number actually on the pen), right?
-Just to ensure I have this correct. So the process over all would be to draw the border, scan it in, put a parchment texture behind it, and crop out the parchment that goes over the border. Then, to use the finished product, one draws a map, scans it in and puts it over the parchment with the correct overlay layer settings, and crop again. This correct?
-It could just be I am looking in the wrong spots but I do not see a difference in the greys mentioned in your third bullet point. Would you mind being a little more specific here?
-Are the pens you are doing the black inking in fineliners?
-Finally, on your challenge map you had the gold and green colors. Was this applied in ink/watercolor/marker/etc or was this done digitally? And if this was done by hand how did you get the gradients in color (esp. the greens in the forest)?

Sorry for the bombardment of questions here but this style of map is what I aspire to.

[MapMappingMapped]

Great maps! Can't rep you again so soon
Since I mess with the same tools, I find it very inspiring that you draw your maps by hand with pen on paper, and even get commissions for these! AND they're beautiful

[ThomasR]

-On your second bullet point you say: "With a pen, 0.05 or 0.03". I assume you are not actually talking about the size in mm of the pen but the number used to represent this (the number actually on the pen), right?

Nope, that's actually 0.05 mm and 0.03 mm and believe me, the copic 0.03 mm is a good investment.

Just to ensure I have this correct. So the process over all would be to draw the border, scan it in, put a parchment texture behind it, and crop out the parchment that goes over the border. Then, to use the finished product, one draws a map, scans it in and puts it over the parchment with the correct overlay layer settings, and crop again. This correct?

Draw the border and the border details, scan it or directly draw it digitally. The map you draw should be the top layer with the blending mode set to Multiply (erases the white parts and shows what's beneath them), no need to crop anything else than the bottom parchment layer.

It could just be I am looking in the wrong spots but I do not see a difference in the greys mentioned in your third bullet point. Would you mind being a little more specific here?

The copic markers have two sets of greys, WARM and COLD. If that's not what you ask, can you explain me again (I'm a bit thick sometimes) ?

Are the pens you are doing the black inking in fineliners?

Exactly, I use Copics, Faber-Castell and Microns.

Finally, on your challenge map you had the gold and green colors. Was this applied in ink/watercolor/marker/etc or was this done digitally? And if this was done by hand how did you get the gradients in color (esp. the greens in the forest)?

Sorry, I forgot to answer this one. All colors were added digitally and the gradients were obtained by adding a layer above set to overlay and using blacks and white at various opacities.

I hope this helps

Great maps! Can't rep you again so soon
Since I mess with the same tools, I find it very inspiring that you draw your maps by hand with pen on paper, and even get commissions for these! AND they're beautiful

Thanks MMM I wish I could be commissioned to draw maps by hand but I practice a lot this way.

[J.Edward]

I love that you ran with this
The scrivener's adventures of La Hattam, man of myst and legends

[ThomasR]

I love that you ran with this
The scrivener's adventures of La Hattam, man of myst and legends

How could I not ? You lit the spark The big one will be a blast I hope.

I edited the first message with some informations about the maps.