# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Town/City Mapping >  Máisandras City Map - WIP

## Blaidd Drwg

Back again, with a map that I've been working on for a few days now.

It's a city from my campaign setting, but I'm not going to add any labeling on the original drawing so I can use it whenever I need a map. I will (try to) finish that in photoshop, and maybe see if I can add some colouring to spice it up a bit.

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## lsc1027

Lovely work thus far. It appears populated and dense as many walled towns would be.The small grove of trees near the south is sublime. Cant wait to see it develop.

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## Blaidd Drwg

Thanks  :Smile: 

Here's an update. The area to the south contains the poorest people and is effectively a slum. I wanted to show that housing gets smaller towards the edges of the city. Rich peoples' home, guild halls and government buildings are concentrated near the two large squares and on the island in the river. I do wonder if I haven't overdone it a bit. Should pay more attention to scale next time, because I've just sort of 'winged it' this time.

To the north will be a still largely empty area used for agriculture, giving the growing city room to expand within the existing walls. On the other side of the river are some small communities, a burial ground (no-one wants zombies spawning inside the city) and farms.

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## Gluhoded

Wow! I love this one, looks really "clean". I envy your precision with pen & paper!
:-]

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## Marken4

Inspiring!  :Very Happy:  However, the slums look more like a miniature of the city than ... a slum. I guess it may be intentional, and it would be hard to change it now, after penning it. But I would probably have gotten rid of the tiny courtyards/backyards.

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## Steel General

A fine start, looking forward to the finished version.

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## Blaidd Drwg

Yeah, I see what you mean. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it myself. It does look like the way I'd want a full city with CHAOS(TM) for a street plan to look. I basically just started by drawing houses along streets (which I hadn't drawn, just imagined) and then filling up as much space as I could. On the one hand, I think it makes sense, but the little courtyards sort of spoil the effect. Thanks for suggesting/pointing out  :Smile:

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## arsheesh

Very nice job so far on this Blaidd.  Nice to see someone doing an actual "hand drawn" city map.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## Blaidd Drwg

That's about it for today. Now for the surrounding countryside  :Smile:

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## Blaidd Drwg

Little time, little progress. But here's a new pic, just the same  :Smile:

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## Ascension

This is just great stuff, man.  Keep up the good work.

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## Jaxilon

Very nicely done! I look forward to following this as you continue.

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## Blaidd Drwg

Thanks for the encouragement ^^

Here's another small update. I'm now doing the pastures around the city (pity the hedges are as wide as some of the houses  :Razz: ) and I've added some lines to the river to make it more recognizable. I don't think they show up very well in the pictures though. Perhaps a scan would work better.

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## sigurdbjohansson

This is absolutely fantastic..... I need to pick up my pens again soon!

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## Sular

This is very impressive work. I know I'd never be able to pull of a city map by hand. I fiddle too much with my layouts.

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## ravells

Great work. Can't wait to see this finished!

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## Blaidd Drwg

Haven't had much time of late, but the hand-drawn part is almost done, now. Just a few details left to do.
The next step will be colouring it in photoshop.

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## eViLe_eAgLe

This is bloody Wonderful Blaidd.

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## Blaidd Drwg

Finally colouring. Pfffff....

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## ravells

I just love hand drawn. All the lines are just that little bit wonky which makes it look ten times better than a computer line.

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## jamesbell

Wow! I love this one, looks really "Great".nice work.....

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## vman3force

Well drafted. cant wait to see it done.

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## jbgibson

Slum courtyards & gardens?   Naaah, those are back alleys full of shady characters, urban pigsties, the Knacker's Meatmarket, backyard distilleries, tinsmiths, and doghair-rug merchants.

Delightful map!

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## Quinnaria

Just... wow!

The finished work is gonna be amazing!

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## Blaidd Drwg

So, I've finally taken the time to finish colouring my map. Now it's just a matter of touching up and adding the labels (not sure how, just yet).
I don't really know which of these looks best. The first image is the 'original', which I think looks just a bit to garish and comic-y. In the second one, I reduced the saturation. In the last two, I've applied a sepia adjustment layer, and reduced its opacity by about 50%. The final image is the same except for a slightly darker tone.

Which one do you prefer? I'm having a hard time chosing.  :Razz: 
If someone sees a completely different way of making this look good: I'm open to suggestions!  :Wink: 



By the way: the words to the right can be ignored. I was just playing around with something. It isn't going to be in the final 'product'.

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## jbgibson

Prefer third, then second, then first, but only by a slight margin.   This is really nice!   I like the mottled/ blobby tinting instead of flood-fill -- I've spent a day staring at old atlas maps that were hand-tinted, and your effect is about right. Though I'd guess there'd be more often doubled-up darkening than gapped missing-color spaces. I'd suggest you vary the edges with some pointed brushstrokes as well - not all would have been nice round blobs of color.  Actually, you could maybe improve the effect even more if you 'colored outside the lines' in a couple more places.   What I saw in a bunch of 1800s maps from pretty upscale atlases was that the colorists got really, really sloppy sometimes.

Your indecision about the best colors -- maybe you can decide just how old your map is.   How old for the _imagined_ viewer or user, not for us.   If it's a 1795-equivalent product, and "today's date" is 1798-equivalent, that more vibrant first one is entirely appropriate.   Hey, colorists would have used the prettiest, most colorful inks and watercolors available!   If the map is from 50 or a hundred "years ago" then the duller colors of #2 or #3 would be great.

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## Ascension

4, 3, 2, 1 to me.

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## eViLe_eAgLe

4 For me, btw nice work!

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## Blaidd Drwg

Thanks, folks  :Smile: 
I myself liked 3 and 4 best. I've gone with #3 in the end.

@jbgibson: that's some really good advice. Thank you very much! I didn't really see all the white areas at first; it depends on the angle of my screen. I've done some smudging and blending to get rid of those, as well as the obvious examples of those "nice round blobs". The ones I could find anyway  :Wink:  I'll remember the tip about the brush tip shape for next time.

Never really thought about how old the map is supposed to look. I suppose the "old map map, newly drawn" is what I'd go for, now I have given it some thought, though. I'm considering adding labels in the conlang of that country, instead of in English, for that reason. As for the brightness/saturation of the colours: I still really prefer them slightly subdued. Perhaps I can justify that by saying that just the original cartographer's style  :Razz:

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## Blaidd Drwg

Okay, well.... Change of plans. I'm going with old. I found a really nice old paper image on the Guild's DeviantArt group and used that as the background. Suddenly the colours looked just the way I like them. Now for the writing.

Stock paper by GeneralVyse on DA

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## ravells

Really subtle colours and I love the whole feel of this. Great work!

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## Lukc

I love how the map actually screams "hand made" ... but I wonder how it would look if you desaturated the paper texture a bit. It's a bit overpowering for my taste, since all the colours are so pale and subtle.

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## wynn

Love the subtly colors, and great design! I agree that the paper texture might need to be toned down just a tad though

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## Clercon

The map looks really great. I like the colours, the layout, I really like it all a lot. I think it looks a bit like a real old map from a history book :-)

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## Blaidd Drwg

> I love how the map actually screams "hand made" ... but I wonder how it would look if you desaturated the paper texture a bit. It's a bit overpowering for my taste, since all the colours are so pale and subtle.


Good advice, thanks. I've left it alone for a few days, and now it does seem a bit too much. I've tried simply reducing the saturation/opacity/fill, just fiddling to see what happens, but the end result is never quite right. When the edges look good, the center of the map becomes too bland again. This is due to the fact that the background drawing is a picture of the original drawing and not a scan. The edges are just slightly darker than the center and this affects the way the colours of the various layers interact. I'm going to try to apply some sort of layer mask and gently paint the areas where I feel the saturation is too high and hope that works. I suck at masks, though. I haven't used them very often yet, and keep forgetting how they work  :Razz: 

Thanks for the feedback everyone!  :Smile:

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## Lukc

Heh, I know about masks ... I keep opening up tutorials and scratching my head every time I work with masks!  :Smile:

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