The Road to Tiamis

[Mouse]

This is my first attempt to complete a hand drawn map - pencil on paper style.

Not much can be seen right now, since I have a habit of starting at the top and working down the page, so the clouds are fairly well finished.

The central mountains are based on a photo I found online showing a place in the Dolomites - name not given, and the road in question is between Merrow and Tiamis, which are purely fictional places.



EDIT: Sorry about the bleached out centre - the flash went off, and without it I couldn't hold the camera still enough! LOL!

[Matthew VE]

Wow! I love it already! Those are some epic mountains! Awesome sky too!

[Mouse]

And heaven only knows how I'm going to shade them! LOL!

Thanks Matthew - and so that you know I'm not actually exaggerating anything, here is the original I found



Maybe someone in our multi-national community can tell me where this is, since if I ever have enough money to go on a holiday, I'd really like to go there. Its just so surreal with all those fields going right up to the edge of the world like that.

EDIT: From JPStod's UTube links (several comments below) I've managed to snatch the name from a very similar picture. This, I think, is probably Geisler... or then again from ChickPea's and Josiah VE's research its probably Val Gardena in the Tyrol

[Straf]

I think they might be in Europe somewhere Mouse, perhaps Italy, I'm thinking in the region of Val Gardena in the Tyrol.

[Tonnichiwa]

This looks interesting. I can't wait to see what you do with what you've learned...I'm sure it will be great!

[Mouse]

Hmmn...

I have a feeling this is going to end up being more like a landscape - my principle painting theme in days of old. But it will show where my imaginary road goes - and that at least is still a kind of map.

This is 30 year old (UK art school) style tonal drawing, but the reason I say I'm not very good at it is that you aren't supposed to actually draw any guide lines at all - just.... shade. My old tutors - Garth especially - will be rolling their eyes in despair at me!

@ Straf - I was hoping someone would know the actual name of the place from the photo. It appears many times over if you google "Dolomite Mountain range" images, but it was quite late after a testy day, and I didn't see any particular place name, other than "Dolomite".

@ Tonnichiwa - thanks for the encouragement I think this is going to be about me re-learning how to shade things - particularly mountains. I'm hoping to acquire a mountain drawing style all of my own that is somewhere between Johnathon Roberts and "Mouse landscape painting", so it won't actually be as complicated as the photograph. I'm just trying to... 'get the mountain thing'

[Voolf]

Hey Mouse,
To get you an idea of how to shade with pencil, it is good to tilt it to diagonal position (so you use flat part of a grafite) and gently move up and down. It can't be done with sharp pen . Make a subtle layer of shade and the smudge it with your finger, it will make the lines dissapear.

I upload 2 of my old old drawings with pencil. They are not so great (and quality also bad, page behind bleeds through paper) but you will get the idea how shade looks with pencil.




Hope this will help in some way.

[Mouse]

Oh nice - the trees especially!

Thanks, Voolf

I knew about the pencil thing. Trouble is all I've got to my name right now is a 0.5 lead HB Pentel - one of those leaded pen type pencil things. I've been so wrapped up in mapping these last few months that I've sadly neglected the state of my study area, and now have no idea where the chest I keep all my art stuff in is buried. Maybe I should do a dungeon style map of this place with the chest as the hidden treasure? LOL!

I will smudge things later if my hatching looks a bit too rough, but I am hoping to achieve the near impossible and stay faithful to my training - hatching without the smudging.

Next WIP may be a few hours away. Neighbour deliberately slams his door at 5.30 am every morning because I once asked him to stop playing squash against my outside wall (its incredibly irritating after the first hour or so), so I have to snooze for a couple of hours once he's gone each time.

[Mouse]

Snoozing done, I nearly didn't wake up in time for the day proper to begin - its extremely dark outside at the moment - grismal in fact.

I didn't get much done and I've had to give up for today - its that dark. I also had so much trouble trying to get a shot of the thing without any camera shake that I gave up and scanned the bit I was working on, which means this is only half the map.

I'm hoping that I'm sort of getting the shadow and light idea on more realistic looking mountains by ignoring the reference photo and making it up as I go along. As a bonus I'm also hoping that the trees are looking ok.

(Also, I am beginning to hate them now - stonework is far faster to do than little scribbly trees!)



EDIT: And yes - that's real rust on the spiral of my sketch pad. The first sketch in it is dated '92. The age is probably why the paper isn't really that white any more, and also why I'm having such a problem taking photos in the semi darkness of a northern hemisphere dreary winter day.

[ChickPea]

Firstly, I'm so happy that you're actually doing this! It's looking great so far. Maybe a little more 'landscape' but, if you include labels and a compass, it's a map! I presume it's just going to be a pencil drawing, or will you colour it?

Also, I think Straf has the correct location. My google-fu also says the mountain resort of Val Gardena in the Tyrol.

Looking forward to your next update.