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 ....