March/April 2024 Challenge: Rawtooth Island

[Daia Maps]

Hey hey cartographers!

I'm pretty new to the forum but I got really excited to participate in one of these challenges. I'll admit I feel a little intimidated seeing the skill previous competition winners have displayed, but I'll do it for the challenge and the learning experience over any glory.

Since the theme is Pre-History, I decided to go for a "caveman island" sorta vibe, inspired obviously a bit by Jurassic Park, but I was also inspired by cave paintings and south-american indigenous art, which you can see applied in the map's frame. I started with the frame because it will help me set the style and it's what I've been personally focusing on in my last maps, I wanna get good at making pretty frames.

Anyway, I just wanna say I accept any ideias or advice, like I said I want to use this opportunity to learn more than anything, I still lack a lot of that reference, technique and foresight that come with experience.

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[Ifrix]

Welcome to the Guild and to your first Challenge!

Loving the border so far so excited to see where you go with this

[Badger]

Welcome to your first challenge. The lite challenge is up too now, so just more experience. I love you line work on the frame, can't wait to see more!

Del

[Diamond]

Well dang, the border is already better than any border I could do...

[Ink_alpinist]

Hi, Daia! Welcome and I hope you have a good time making your map . And really cool border, where did you take inspiration from?

[Daia Maps]

Hi, Daia! Welcome and I hope you have a good time making your map . And really cool border, where did you take inspiration from?

Hey Ink_alpinist. Thanks for the question!

I guess I just thought of the things that remind me of pre-history in general, and cave-paintings were my first thought. But I also remembered Brazilian indigenous communities and how they exist and have maintained their culture from way before the colonization, so I decided to add some of that, you can see in in that thin inner boarder. Hopefully I can get something original by mixing these different elements.

I also went into some of the galleries in this forum to see how people frame their maps, specially the hand drawn ones.

[Daia Maps]

New Update:

Finished the boarder, took me a while but life gets busy lol. Anyway, I went with different themes for each section of the boarder. Got animals on the left, cultures on the top, hunting on the bottom and a tapestry of animals around a god on the right. I decided I wanted to go semi-realistic with this world, no dinosaurs of magical creatures but there is a level of mysticism to these tribes.

Speaking of tribes, I started to dot the map with them, depicted by different building and silhuetes. I also started placing down forests and mountains, with the classic volcano on the heart of the island. Also a snake island on the north because there's a real snake island here in Brasil and I thought that was really cool.

I think this map might end up looking a little too disjointed and chaotic but I'm in too deep to go back hahaha. At least the theme might help excuse the amateur look. I'm having a lot o fun anyway, so whatever.

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[Badger]

Ohhh... so cool. I love it. very Tribal. Also reminds me of the Isle of Dread adventure module... the island shape.... Can't wait to see the finished map!!

Badger

[Ink_alpinist]

Cool! I loved your diverse framework, and also how the icons inside the map match such style. Promising work

[Daia Maps]

You guys just won't believe my luck... My pen spilled just as I was finishing the outline of everything. It wasan't that bad I can easily remove it if I decide to scan and edit the map. But is still sucks a bit haha.

Well here it is so far. I'll think on it a little more before adding details to the sea, and then go on to the final touches. I might try editing it in Photoshop to make it look old, or maybe if I get some free time, I'll do the old coffee trick.

### Latest WIP ###