ralf | March 19, 2014 | competition, user maps
We’ve asked Christian, the winner of our map-making competition, to share a few words on his map and the competition and he was so kind to oblige. Here’s what he has to say.
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A few weeks ago I was searching online for fantasy map-making contests. I wanted an assigned theme and a real deadline—something that would challenge my skills and help me generate another piece of work I could be proud of. That’s when I came across ProFantasy.com. I’d been interested in their software before, but hadn’t had a chance to use it. Now I had a chance to win it in a competition.
Make an island, they said, about three miles across. Something like a medieval treasure map. The contest had been open for months, but was closing in just a few days. I took a look at the submissions that had been sent in thus far, decided I had a shot at winning, and threw myself into it.
I worked feverishly, right up to the deadline, and actually ran out of time to put absolutely everything I wanted into the map. That’s why there’s no border around it, and no compass rose… But what I did manage to produce followed my vision. As a novelist and dungeon master, I knew I could create some storytelling elements that would hook into the drawing. Some secrets and clues that would only be available to those who looked closely, and a narrative that would marry the image to the text. I had an aesthetic that I’d been developing for maps for my novels, inspired by some of the top fantasy cartographers online. I’m passionate about making beautiful illustrations, and I’m excited to be learning new techniques every day.
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As for the hands-on process itself, virtually all of this map was hand-drawn in ProCreate on an iPad 3 using an Adonit Touch stylus. There are a few “pattern brushes” in that app which help with things like the the jungle trees and the ocean waves, but everything else was the result of pushing pixels manually. The shape of the island and mountains isn’t based on anything other than doodling with the idea of a vaguely volcanic tropical island in mind.
The cloister overhead plan was laid out in Adobe Illustrator. It’s far larger, sharper, and more detailed in the original file, with many upper floors and basement dungeon levels. The “3D” isometric extrusion of the cloister is actually just faux-3D, a technique I use in Illustrator where I take the overhead plan and rotate, squash, duplicate and move by a certain amount, and then blend. I took a screen shot of that and traced over it in ProCreate.
The last step was to bring it all into Adobe Photoshop. I had created a “parchment background” from some rendered clouds and a bunch of filters, so I laid out the various pieces on that background and added the text elements. Then I did save-for-web and picked settings that looked good but kept the resulting file under 2 MB.
The cloister itself is about 300 feet on one axis, making the hypotenuse around 500 feet. Since you can line up 30 of the little cloister images end to end and have them stretch from one side of the island to the other, the island winds up being about 3 miles across.
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ralf | February 19, 2014 | community, Maps of the Month, user maps
It’s time for the monthly parade of user maps posted to the ProFantasy forum – again we have some lovely work to show off, thanks to the community!
As described elsewhere, TolrendorDM finished off his 2013 Annual Challenge with this map of the “Barrens of Gorak” in the 1930’s travel guide style.
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ralf | January 13, 2014 | community, Maps of the Month, user maps
It’s been a while since we did a collection of users maps here. First the convention season didn’t leave us enough time and then the Character Artist 3 release took a lot of resources. But now we’ve been able to take a breath over the holidays, we’ve looking at the forum again and there are so many nice maps. Here’s the collection:
suntzu created this amazing set of isometric dungeon and outdoor maps with Herwin Wielink’s Isometric Dungeon style.
This beautiful little gem of a Knight’s Crypt was posted by Modric.
This interesting cave map is the result of work in DD3 and Photoshop by Avotas. It’s being created for a commercial D&D/Pathfinder adventure, therefore the grey watermark overlay.
Drednort posted a stalwart adventuring party, freshly created with Character Artist 3. You’ll find more character portraits in the forum thread when you click on the image.
While deceptively simply this black and white map of the world Maioria by Miafeya is one of my favorites. Designed for a 2-page spread in a book, it suits that purpose very well.
TolrendorDM shared several maps for his Annual 2013 challenge, you’ll find them in the thread linked through this example of the CC3 Overland Hex style.
I’m always happy to see star ships created with Cosmographer 3 and craigo730‘s Mercury-class Battlestar is no exception.
KenG shared another great dungeon map, King Ranier’s Vault with the community. And it comes with a complete adventure!
He also created this collection of boats and rafts, very useful if you need a quick way to get across that river on your battlemap!
I don’t really need to say much about Clercon’s (Pär Lindström) New Year Village map, after all he’s done several Annual styles already. But his city and village maps are always particularly impressive.
Educational use of CC3 always delights me, so I was thrilled to see languard and his students create these SciFi tiles for a boardgame of their own making.
What would a user map collection be with one of Sadizm‘s gorgeous Deadlands battle maps. A lot less exciting that’s for sure!
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ralf | June 24, 2013 | community, Maps of the Month, user maps
Again, we’ve got a ton of great new user maps to present. The month goes by so quickly and still they continue to pile up. Let’s see what we’ve got…
First there is the BlindMapMaker with this gorgeous rendition of the Caribbean Sea in the Mercator Historical style. Way to start this round-up!
TolrendorDM used the May Annual style on a Pär Lindström Regional style map to depict three journeys on that map. This is exactly how I imagined the style to be used.
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ralf | May 23, 2013 | community, Maps of the Month, user maps
It’s time for our monthly look at what great maps the ProFantasy user community has produced. Let’s see what everyone has come up with!
Joachim de Ravenbel is back with this beautiful battle map of Hanin’s Chapel.
KROM delights once more with his Dioramas models plus floorplans. See his Mausoleum and the Kothian Houses:
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ralf | April 15, 2013 | battle map, community, Maps of the Month, user maps
I always look forward to putting together the month’s collection of user maps from the ProFantasy forum. It’s always a parade of beautiful and interesting maps. Let’s have a look, shall we?
KenG really took my breath way with his Cistern Caves. The pipes and cisterns look extremely lifelike and were something I hadn’t seen done in CC3 yet.
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ralf | March 19, 2013 | community, Maps of the Month, user maps
It’s time again to admire all the user maps that have popped up in the ProFantasy forum during the last four weeks.
Taking up a recent Annual issue (Pär Lindström’s regional style), Modric created this beauty of the Dwimmerheim region.
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ralf | March 1, 2013 | Annual, overland, user maps
We’ve just released the March Annual issue: Flavio’s Myrr Overland style is now available as a download for the Annual subscribers.
His beautiful and unique overland style is based on intricate bitmap texture and shaded contours, as you can see from this sample:
You can subscribe to the current Annual here.
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ralf | February 21, 2013 | community, Maps of the Month, user maps
We’re a bit earlier this time around, so I don’t have a full month of user maps to round up. The tally is still very impressive, as well as the skill and imagination of our users.
Krom continued his series of Diorama buildings created from DD3 resources, with this beautiful village temple.
KenG drew this beautiful floor plan of some manor house stables, including artwork from DD3, the CSUAC and the Dundjinni forums.
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ralf | January 30, 2013 | community, Maps of the Month, user maps
We’ve gone into 2013 and our community shows no sign of letting up with the barrage of wonderful user maps. Here’s the roundup for January!
KenG was inspired by KROM’s wonderful close-up maps/paintings done in the Herwin Wielink overland style. The result is this beautiful local map.
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