WIP: Fort Eelry

[Misjay Maps]

I keep meaning to spend more time hanging out here, and then another year passes in a moment!
So, in an attempt to kick my own rear end into gear..... This is a 1-post run through of my latest settlement map creation.

These days, all my maps start in Procreate, usually with a very rough sketch, just to get a feel for the layout, main locations and shape of the land. For this one, 2 locations (the fort and the church) are going to be based on existing battlemaps, so I ported them in to get the scale right:


Starting to add the ink, and, as usual, I can't resist starting to add a bit of colour before the inking stage is finished.
I don't do a detailed sketch before inking as I find that it makes the final drawing too tidy.


Inking continues... I dicided to add a whole lot more rocky hillside in the NE and added a stained paper texture to start to find the mood of the finished map.


Inking is finished...
The trees were created in Photoshop using a splodgy brush I created and layer styles - Then exported back as a transparent .png layer into the main map file in Procreate so I could see what they will look like.
Also picked a light direction and added some rough landscape shading. Usually I have the light coming from the top-left, but with all the high ground to the right on this map, I thought it would help show the elevation better if it came from the top-right instead.


To be continued ....

[Misjay Maps]

Ok... the next bit :-)

The next stage was going over all those rocks and adding down-hill shading to make them lift up out of the 'page'
Also gave the roofs some ridge-line highlighting and the river a bit of life


After that most of the rocks got a touch of highlighting to lift them up even more
Then 'grass' was painted in around the rocks (under the rock shading layer). Lightly in most places. Greener near buildings and water.


The final stage in Procreate was to create a 'ripped paper' background and frame.
I had to do this in a separate image file because I had used up all my available layers in the primary map file (due to the map being so huge!).


To be continued......

[Misjay Maps]

Oh... also in Procreate.... I made separate map title and key 'paper overlays' in another procreate file, As well as a template for a locations 'Game card'


By then I had 4 =separate Procreate files.
I ported them all over to my computer and started compiling all the different parts together and finishing the map off in Photoshop.

I do all the final text in Photoshop as well as colour grading using the Camera Raw filter to get the final colour tone and feel right. I tend to lean more towards the warm & bright end of the scale :-)
The red textural background was also done in Photoshop, using splatter brushes and a couple of photos of concrete textures from my photo archives.

In the end... the final poster version looked likes this:


And these are all the variations and bit's and bobs I did to go with it - including a few of the location 'game cards' - which are a new idea I am playing with. They can be illustrations in game play notes or could be used as player items to show found 'quick port' locations


In all, it took about 55 hours & I am pretty pleased with how it has turned out :-)