High-Detail City Map (Professional/Semi-Professional)

[Ben A514]

Hello! I'm Ben, I've been a Dungeon Master for a little over six years now and the map of the central city of my homebrew setting, Gildhaven, is in dire need of an update. I originally hand-drew the map, then I had it digitized by another artist. I wasn't 100% happy with the results so I had to do some tweaking on my own. I ended up with a map that has served me pretty well for the last two years or so. But recently I've run into a couple of issues with the map;

1. First Problem; Gildhaven is too small in scale, at present it's about the size of Neverwinter, when I'd like something perhaps half the size of Waterdeep. This means I'll need to approximately triple the scale of the city.
2. Second Problem; This map is very utilitarian. Sure, it gets the job done and clearly represents Gildhaven well enough, but it's bland as hell and is in need of a nice coat of paint. Ideally I'd like to have something that looks nice enough that I'd want to frame it.

Detailed Project Description
I've got several detailed versions of the current map and notes to go with them, for some specific landmarks I'd like to either redesign or have them presented at a very specific size. I'll provide some sketches for these. (I'll give you all this stuff when you accept the project).
Anyway, here are the main goals for the project

• Create a new map, 3x the scale of the old map
• City drawn in a top down view, both because I like the style and it makes it easier to reuse buildings
• The new buildings can be less detailed, but I'd ideally like a bit more detail and variation in colour than the Waterdeep map presented in the "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist" adventure (I can provide this for reference if you don't have a copy)
• As the artist, you can go basically hog-wild on building placement for everything that isn't a landmark, but I'll give you some general guidelines for different districts.
• More trees throughout the city some taller and some shorter than their surrounding buildings
• I'd also like to produce a variant of the map where the slum district is mostly replace with larger buildings. (A major plot point in one of the adventures set there that involves a large fire in the slums, and I've got adventures set before and after the event).
• If you could provide some map assets (a few different building variants, some trees etc. in a separate document on a transparent layer as well, that would be grand. I may want to tweak the map at some point and it'll make my job so much simpler, this point is negotiable.

Budget
I'm happy to negotiate and I've got a fairly flexible budget, I understand that this is a pretty ambitious project, so I'm looking in the range of $200 AUD or higher.

Design Process
Once we decide on a final cost we can figure out how much would be fair to pay throughout the process. I am more than happy to pay part up front. I'd like to approach this project in stages, paying you as we go.

Stage 1: Produce some small tests for different structures in the city.
Stage 2: Street/Wall layout, placement of landmarks, submitted for feedback
Stage 3: 50% completed, progress submitted for feedback
Stage 4: 90% completed, progress submitted for feedback
Stage 5: Completed Map + Variant

Copyright
I'd will have the right to use the map for commercial purposes, but you'll have the right to use exhibit the map in your portfolio but not to use it for commercial gain. Again, I'm happy to negotiate.

Technical
The map needs to be at least 300ppi, want it to print at poster size (A1 or A0). I'd like to final map to be delivered in PDF and PSD Format. With the photoshop format, leave the layers separate if possible. I know how to use photoshop and in the future I may want to mess around with the map in future.

Contact and Delivery
You can contact me via email at ben.a514gaming--at--gmail.com or on twitter at --at--bena514gaming (replace "--at--" with @). You can email the completed files, however if they are too large to send (my working file for the current map is 3.4gb) we can work out something else.

Deadline
I'm not in any sort of rush to complete the maps, the current map will serve me fine for the foreseeable future. Two months from when you accept the project and I get the additional details to you might be a good timeframe to aim for, though if it takes longer that's ok too.

Future Work
I have several other maps that I would like to produce in the future, these will be far less detailed and have much simpler project outlines. If this project goes well and I'm able to justify such a purchase again, I'll be sure to let you know directly before posting the hypothetical future project publicly.

[Eri]

I don't mean to be rude here but your price range is drastically under what i expect most would go for here. Your asking for a very detailed city map which is a rather time consuming process, you are asking for all the assets as part of the project.. again, pricey. Commercial licences for a map usually multiply the cost already incurred and then asking for the psd which I know most here what not give over lightly. Good luck with it though and I do hope you find someone for the project

[Wired]

Mate, with all you're asking for I'd probably slap a 1.000€ price tag on that and still be wary about it. ^^ A1 or A0, super detailed, commercial rights AND the source file? Yikes.

[Ben A514]

Thanks for the feedback! This my first doing anything like this, and I was struggling to find a point of reference. I had no idea that people were so guarded about the source file for maps

[Tiana]

It isn't something you would find immediately apparent, but the way people use to assemble their digital products is part of what makes their product unique. That said, I have done it (provided editable files), I just set them up in simpler ways so they can be edited in the future with less hassle and I tend to merge a lot of my texture stacking into as few pieces as necessary before sending them. It wouldn't be cheap though, for a project like this is huge in scope. Can it be done? Sure! A map like this is a ton of work compared to an overland map though. I'd consider doing it (making a city and providing the layers) but not for $200.