# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > General and Miscellaneous Mapping >  Motley Mapping Fragments by Abu Lafia

## Abu Lafia

Hello everybody!
I thought i will use this thread to post from time to time some stuff i'm currently working on, learning and struggling with. Hope you'll enjoy it!  

I came to this idea by a small pencil sketch, i scribbled down during and after our last rpg session this weekend. I wanted to scan it and maybe "post-processing" this piece digitally in gimp. It was the first time i scanned something drawn, and i was actually somewhat surprised by the relatively good quality (my friend's scanner is just a common "all-in-one" device, but with 600 dpi). So after cleaning the sketch up a bit, i just (multi-) layered it over a parchment background with different settings (multiply 40%, burn 80%, overlay 80%) and voilà! 


I like the look of it and thought tracing the lines in gimp might not even be necessary here. 
It's a rather easy way to produce some nice small handouts for pen&paper sessions. 
Maybe i'll also have a look, how to add some color to it soon.

Here is the original scan with some more sketches (a manor and a small cellar) :

(scaled down to 50%)

As always, critique, comments, suggestions, in fact any kind of feedback is greatly welcome!
Cheers,
AL

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## Chick

That certainly turned a plain sketch into a beauty of a parchment picture  :Smile:

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## soggymuse

Ooh, no, don't do anything else to that, it looks great.  :Very Happy:  People spend so much time and money to get maps in that style!

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## snodsy

Nice Job Abu Lafia, 
Think the hand-drawn quality is always a nice touch.    Question: The sketch was duplicated and had the layer effects applied,  not the parchment, correct.

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## ChickPea

That parchment map looks fantastic!!

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## Abu Lafia

> That certainly turned a plain sketch into a beauty of a parchment picture


Thanks a lot Chick, i'm glad you like it!



> Ooh, no, don't do anything else to that, it looks great.  People spend so much time and money to get maps in that style!


Thanks soggymuse, much appreciated! I was thinking the same, and after accidentally getting this result, i thought i need to share it. It's really no magic after all, so i hope i'm not revealing any secrets here  :Smile: 



> Nice Job Abu Lafia, 
> Think the hand-drawn quality is always a nice touch.    Question: The sketch was duplicated and had the layer effects applied,  not the parchment, correct.


Thank you snodsy, yes, the layer effects are applied to the (copies of the) sketch, although i forgot to mention, that in the end, i duplicated the parchment background too and put a copy of it on top of the layer stack with an overlay effect (layermode in gimp) on it.  



> That parchment map looks fantastic!!


Thanks ChickPea! Also, many thanks for the feature!  :Wink:

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## Chick

This is great, but may I humbly suggest you go put it in the Tutorials section?  :Smile:

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## Abu Lafia

Here are two pieces, i started working on while procrastinating my challenge map  :Wink:   Not sure when i'll come back to them and maybe make a proper wip, but i wanted to share it with you guys nonetheless and thought this might be a good place for this. 

One day i was playing around with the wonderful planet generator by Torben Morgensen and saved some coastlines i liked the most. Here i worked with a mixture of "automated" processes in gimp (mostly stroking a path of the coastline with different sorts of brushes and layermodes) and handdrawn elements on the basis of these generated coastlines. 
The mountains in the first pic are rather simple , though i like them actually.  The ones in the second are done in the style of the mountains i made on my Tarkir map.
For the title-parchment i used nearly the same technique as for the coastline on both maps. 

 

I hope you enjoy it. Any kind of feedback is, as always, very welcome!  :Smile: 
Cheers,
AL

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## Bogie

Nice mountains!

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## Azélor

> Nice mountains!


I agree.

What's the name of the font?

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## ChickPea

I like the mountain styles on both your pics. The first kind may be 'simple' but they look very attractive and would work well with a certain style of map. I also love the contrast with the dark, dark water. I'd love to see the full map and hope you post it one of these days! The line art on the second style is very good, but maybe they could benefit from a little more shading to highlight the dark and light areas? Just a thought.

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## AzurePlanet

Hi Abu, your excellent result on "The Fishbone Wharf" makes me want to re-born my old sketches too!
And yes, as Chick kindly suggested, a tutorial on that would be highly appreciated.

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## Abu Lafia

Thanks you guys for the feedback! 

@Azelor: The font is Fraenkisch by Dieter Steffmann, who made a s***-load of amazing fonts which are all free for personal use (and many of them are well known and used by the people around here i guess), as he is against the commercialization of fonts (Link to his personal Website in german, where he writes about his first steps in digital font creation). 
When i first saw this font, i knew i HAVE to use it on a map one day.  :Very Happy: 

@ ChickPea: Glad you like the colour choice! I wasn't quite sure about it, cause i'm using my old monitor atm, having a bit of a different colour representation. With the first mountains. i was just thinking about making the whole working step of "doing mountains" a lot quicker, as this usually takes sooo much time. For the second ones i only put in some rough lights and no  shadows so far (good catch!  :Wink:  ). I guess they'll get a lot more depth with some shades and more refined highlights.
The first pic is indeed just a snapshot of a far bigger map (that's why the file is named TNBM  :Smile:  ), which looks quite empty so far.  That's also the reason, why i started with the smaller Grant & Karst map to apply the techniques i used for the first one.    

Here is another update of the Grant & Karst map (i really should start a wip thread soon...):

I layed in some rivers in the southern area (where the Kingdom of Karst is) and added some more mountain ranges in the north (Grantian Kingdom). I also tweaked the colour of the title more red, as it was originally intended.

... Oh, Azure Planet, you nearly "ninja'ed" me with your post  :Smile:  ... Glad you like the sketch! It was indeed intended to just show how easy it was to make a quick sketch look somewhat fancy  :Wink:  . I'd love to see some of your old stuff revamped. Btw. the kind suggestion from chick was regarding the "Customizable Banner" Tutorial i posted here originally and moved now here. But i might make a small tutorial for this parchment style sketches too. 

Cheers,
AL

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## J.Edward

That's quite nice Abu.  :Smile: 
That color scheme looks very pleasing, especially with the red lettering.

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## Ilanthar

It's looking great Abu! The only thing I'm not fond of is the bright line you have along the coast (on the land). A bit too bright to my taste. Oh, and thank you for this link, there are indeed some very interesting fonts there  :Smile: .

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## Abu Lafia

Thank you guys for the feedback! I'm notoriously starting new maps, leaving older projects unfinished. While i am somewhat happy with my mountains, i usually stuck doing the forests and then losing interest :/ So instead of opening a wip-thread for every single one of them, here are some unfinished maps i started the last months:
The "Grant&Karst" map i posted above is a typical case, i finished the mountain linework and some blobs where the forest should be, then started trying some things with the forests and skipped them in favour of labels and stuff... 


On this map, something similar happend. With the forests ahead, i switched to making the border and some nice ornaments and never came back...  
 

Here i planned doing a more "plain" map (with political borders), but it looked a bit too empty in the end. After some attempts of doing mountains and forests, i decided it isn't looking that bad without this stuff...  :Smile:  


Finally a piece, where i tried to make a "proper" isometric coastline (in fact i just compressed it vertically to 57,7% as suggested by torstan and xpian) as the mountains i go with at the moment look somewhat off on the above maps. Haven't finished the mountains yet, but i somehow fear the forests ... maybe it'll be an arid, rocky island  :Very Happy: 


Maybe it's because i somewhat tunneled on iso maps since i like the mountains i developed in my Tarkir map (also unfinished btw.). I just haven't found a way to draw forests that fit the style of the mountains somewhat and are not to detail-heavy. The forests i started on the "Grant&Karst" map are not too bad, but they took way too long to do. 
While these maps are rotting on my hard drive, i'm working on two encounter maps for an rpg session, and the best thing is: there are no forests on it! 

Cheers,
AL

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## ChickPea

This probably isn't an entirely helpful comment, but it makes me strangely happy to know that I'm not the only one with a hard drive full of unfinished maps. I have eleven half-finished maps (I number them!) I definitely want to finish up at least eight or nine of those but there's always some new idea that I just need to try....

Your pics look great, even in their unfinished state. Hope you find the impetus to tackle the forests.

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## Meshon

Great! Thanks for sharing these. I have a specific question about the Dawning Jarldoms map. It looks like you've got an inland glow going on, where the land at the edges of the water is lighter and a different colour. Now, what's driving me crazy is trying to figure out how you made the lighter area on the seacoasts larger than the very controlled areas along the edges of rivers. Is it hand done? Different layers for rivers and coasts? Tell me all your secrets!  :Wink: 

Nice to see your work and I'll add myself to the list of collectors of unfinished maps…

cheers,
Meshon

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## Abu Lafia

Hi Chickpea, yeah i was hoping there are other people having the same problem too... not sure if " a shared problem is a halved problem", but i still have hope not to abandon those pieces  :Smile: 

Hey Meshon, before i can tell you my secrets, you need to be initiated into the inner circles of ... well, i have to admit it's rather "Pfusch" (no idea how to translate... flub? blotch? bungling? ... funny words actually) so no really "clean" way to do this. I guess, this won't scare you off, so i'll give it a try to explain:
Yes, it's two (or better four) separate layers, the first with the wider "inner glow" (i usually make it by selection -> path, stroke path (keep the selection or maybe invert it) ) from the landmass layer without rivers, the other layer with a narrower "inner glow" from the landmass layer with rivers. Than i went "alpha to selection" on the first "glow-layer" and cleared the selected area on the second "glow-layer".  Maybe some erasing by hand on the "junctions" is necessary afterwards. The same i did on the "Grant& Karst" map and the "TNBM" map. Hope it makes some sense, as i worked with gimp.

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## Meshon

> Hey Meshon, before i can tell you my secrets, you need to be initiated into the inner circles of ... well, i have to admit it's rather "Pfusch"


Oh wow I've been initiated into the inner circles of Pfusch! So exciting!

And thanks for the explanation. It looks really smooth and I like the effect a lot.

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## Abu Lafia

So after finishing my challenge entry, i played with the idea of entering the #mapvember "challenge" after seeing all the lovely posts around here and at twitter. With the nice list of topics provided by Miska, i thought it would fit perfect, to start a series of small maps all in the same setting (an arid planet suffering under a colonial war... sounds familiar, hmm...  :Wink:  )

I already have a rough outline of a story connecting the different locations, but i think it's also just nice to have a (more or less) coherent set of small local maps for a sci-fi setting in the end to share it with anyone interested.

The last three days, i started with the first three maps:
1: #Beacon


2:  #Derelict


3: #Descent


Enjoy!  :Smile:

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## Ilanthar

Pretty set! You've became a master for the "mos eiley" palette and feel  :Wink: . The last one is my favourite, I really like the frame as well.

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## Dyson Logos

NICE!

Also quite funky and original style showcasing in the derelict cave for instance.

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## ThomasR

Glad to see you back and on this topic  :Wink:

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## Abu Lafia

@Ilanthar: Thank you! Yes, since "Musfat Spaceport", i always come back to it  :Smile:  .  
@Dyson: Many thanks! Means a lot coming from one of the "Grand maîtres" of mapping. 
@Thomrey: I'm glad you guys started this mapvember madness!  :Wink:  

So, here is #4 and #5 in one map. #4 is a sacred place of one group of natives on the planet, with access only via the bridges from the "hangars" on smaller plateaus nearby (#5), where a small monastic group lives together with the sacred "white birds", which are also used as flying mounts...

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## Dyson Logos

I love the sacred white birds. Strong Moebius feels to it.

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## ThomasR

> I love the sacred white birds. Strong Moebius feels to it.


I was also looking for Arzak  :Smile:

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## Abu Lafia

@ dyson: Well, sometimes i just cannot resist these all too obvious citations.  :Wink:  @ thomas: Ofc, Arzak is in one of these caves...you know, to draw a rider on top wouldn't have been a problem for me at all , but i just had to stick to the story here... XD

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## Abu Lafia

I haven't worked on these for a while and all of a sudden i found myself with ink and graph paper once again  :Very Happy:  

I chose to continue with #10 of Miska's list, not only because Mapvember is already long ago, but because i planned to do #6-9 all somewhat related in the "Colony" setting of that planet...  So here is another sacred mesa of the natives where they elevate their gifts to the winds.  :Smile:

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## Mouse

I like this one  :Smile: 

What kind of pen do you use?

When you've done the drawing I presume you scan it and colour it in PS?

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## ThomasR

That's impressive Martin, not only your linework and placement is really great but I think you chose a wonderful palette. It's even becoming a signature palette  :Wink:

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## Abu Lafia

> I like this one 
> 
> What kind of pen do you use?
> 
> When you've done the drawing I presume you scan it and colour it in PS?


Thanks Mouse, yes i coloured it digitally (in Gimp) and i used a 0.7 mm Faber Castell pen (actually prefer the 0.5, but it was hidden somewhere and i was too lazy to search for it, so i worked mainly with the tip's edge...  :Very Happy:  ) and a  0.1 mm copic multiliner for some of the details.




> That's impressive Martin, not only your linework and placement is really great but I think you chose a wonderful palette. It's even becoming a signature palette


Thanks Thomas, yes i planned to make this series of maps with a coherent palette and used the same colours and parchment background for all of them (originally used in my "abandoned mesa outpost" map whicjh gave me the idea to expand this setting a bit further). Linework-wise the set is not that coherent, or let's say it's evolving, but although this last map is rather simple, i like it the most so far regarding the coluring/shading and overall look.  :Smile:

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## Abu Lafia

Here is the next one of the series  :Smile: 

The precious Cryusat is the actual reason why the Congregation of Light decided to conquer the arid planet Kreios. 
The refined minerals are needed to filter the more and more toxic atmosphere of their home world, because nearly hundred years ago, the High Council of Sages calculated, that it'd be much more profitable to exploit the Cryusat from Kreios, than to regulate their own ever growing industry... 
With the  #9 "Refinery", #8 Storage and #7 "Control" to follow, i'll do a few more maps depicting the infrastructure for the colonial exploitation of Cryusat on the planet.

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## Voolf

I very much like those maps Abu. Your style has a charm i like  :Wink:

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## Mouse

Damn!  You are way too fast for me to keep up with the repping power!  

Another map I really like, and again - I just can't put my finger on it.  I guess that must mean that the composition, drawing, shading, colour scheme and everything I normally pick up on straight away if they just don't sit right with me - all of that must therefore be good  :Smile:

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## ThomasR

The complete set will be glorious !

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## Abu Lafia

Hello everybody, once again i'll raise this old thread of mine from the deeps of this subforum to delurk and join the fun of mapvember.

I'm a bit late but i'll try my best to catch up. Although i want to beat my last years number of maps, i'm not sure if i'll be able to make all of them... 

For a start:
#1 The hold of a Bog-Goblin clan, deep in the "Finstermoor"  :Smile:  (or any other generic swamp/bog/etc.)  


#2 The most villainous Port Elegba, a Space Bandit haven in the Xerxes Belt. Infamous for the highest density of loot, booze and bad manners in all the galaxy.

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## ThomasR

Glad to see you back Martin  :Smile:  And with gorgeous pieces as always. The asteroid is terrific !

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## ChickPea

Nice work, Abu, and yeah, it's great to see you back posting again.  :Smile:

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## Abu Lafia

Thank you Thomas! Seeing you and many others being so unbelievably creative and productive, not just with the regular mapping but also with Inktober and Mapvember, made my fingers really itchy.  :Smile: 
Thanks ChickPea! Indeed, haven't been to active lately and i absolutely have to change that.  :Very Happy:  

To catch up with the Mapvember, here is a double map for Day 3&4: "The Mirror and the Basilisk"

Hope you enjoy, and feel free to give me some hints regarding misspellings/grammar etc... you know, i always found it easy to get out of Germany, but it seems terribly hard to get "ze german" out of me XD 



Cheers,
AL

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## Blaidd Drwg

These are great!

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## Mouse

Oh brilliant!

I LOVE the sense of humour.

Just brilliant!

Great maps too  :Smile:

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## kacey

Glad to see you back! The maps look great.

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## DanielHasenbos

Gotta love that one!

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## Meshon

Ah! So delightful! I love your combo map, and the asteroid port… thanks for bringing the maps, they are so good.

Cheers,
Meshon

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## Ilanthar

Very fine work! I love the goblin one especially.

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## Abu Lafia

Realized i haven't uploaded some of the maps i made the last months. The first two are somewhat related to the futuristic universe inhabited (among others) by the notorious but charming space pirates Archie and Salazar.

 



The third one was inspired by reading into Monte Cook's world of Numenera. A strange device from another age.



EDIT: found another one... number 5 of Mapvember (well, maybe next year i get at least 10 pieces done  :Smile:  ) It was thought as a kind of response to Meshons fantastic illustration of "Salazar's Ghost"



Hope you enjoy!

AL

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## Ilanthar

> Hope you enjoy!


I certainly do  :Wink: !
Nice work and diversity. It's fun how different it feels with a warm or a cold color palette.

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## ThomasR

Those are wonderful ! And I'd love to read more about your two scoundrels !

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## Blaidd Drwg

"I slowly began to hear the grass grow." LOL XD

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## kacey

Nice to see you back around the forum Abu and beautiful work as always.

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## Meshon

> Realized i haven't uploaded some of the maps i made the last months. The first two are somewhat related to the futuristic universe inhabited (among others) by the notorious but charming space pirates Archie and Salazar.
> 
> Attachment 104498 
> 
> Attachment 104499
> 
> The third one was inspired by reading into Monte Cook's world of Numenera. A strange device from another age.
> 
> Attachment 104500
> ...


Oh my, I'm months behind, how did I miss these? Wonderful work. I'm really excited to see some Numenera inspired maps, the Ninth World is full of cartographic possibilities

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

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## Abu Lafia

Thought i'd park my further watercolour experiments in this thread here.
That one is not exactly a map, but i hope you enjoy it anyway...

@Meshon I originally thought about a remote moon in a long forgotten system, though i like the idea that this landscape could actually be somewhere in the Ninth World aswell...  :Smile:

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## Meshon

> Thought i'd park my further watercolour experiments in this thread here.
> That one is not exactly a map, but i hope you enjoy it anyway...
> 
> @Meshon I originally thought about a remote moon in a long forgotten system, though i like the idea that this landscape could actually be somewhere in the Ninth World aswell...


This is wonderful! And wet media no less. Your watercolour work is going really well, congratulations. I'm very glad to hear that the Ninth World is in your thoughts. It is also the sort of place where Archie and Salazar might get stuck...

Beautiful, thank you for sharing it.

Best,
Meshon

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

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## Abu Lafia

Oh boy, did i somehow summoned you by typing "@Meshon" here?  :Very Happy:  (if so, i need to keep that trick in mind) ... yeah the place looks like there are quite some pieces to loot!  :Wink:

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## Meshon

Speak of the devil... and the devil appears!


> Oh boy, did i somehow summoned you by typing "@Meshon" here?  (if so, i need to keep that trick in mind) ... yeah the place looks like there are quite some pieces to loot!


Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

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## MistyBeee

Amazing, Abu ! The mountains are incredible there !

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## ThomasR

Holy 8hit ! Do you realize how Giger this looks ?

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## Ilanthar

Nice  :Smile: ! Makes me indeed think of some dark sci-fi postcard somehow.

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## Abu Lafia

@Meshon, MistyBeee, Thomas & Ilanthar: Sorry you guys! It took me only half a year to find this dusty ol' thread to thank you properly... i'm really glad you like it!  :Smile: 

So here is a piece i started drawing some weeks ago, just to ease that terrible itch in my somewhat rusted fingers after drawing pretty much nothing for way too long:



I decided to go for digital colouring, because i felt i already messed up too much of the linework and feared to ruin it with watercolours entirely XD 

I began to block in some base colours after scanning and was quite pleased with the palette. Next will be shades and highlights...

Let me know what you think, any suggestions, comments and critique is welcome (as always)! 

Cheers,
AL

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## Ilanthar

Where did you messed up too much with the linework  :Surprised: ??? It's excellent, in my opinion! I love it.
Definitely looking forward to the next steps!

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## Abu Lafia

Thanks Ilanthar, much appreciated!  :Smile:  Well, i like quite a lot of it (as said, it was pretty much the whole purpose of the piece to get back into my drawing comfort zone XD). The inconsistency of the lineweight and even more so some flaws with the perspective is what bugs me the most. Although adding the colours drew the attention a bit away from these in my view...yeah, the overcritical self is the fiercest enemy right?  

Completed the mountain shading and highlights...for me always one of the best parts in the process...the piece taking its shape and somewhat "coming to life" strikes me time and time again  :Very Happy:

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## Abu Lafia

Forest shading done. Well, more of a stippled texture maybe ... feeling a bit exhausted now   :Very Happy:

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## Kellerica

Your lineart just gets better and better, as far as I'm concerned. The mountains in particular are looking more alive than ever, and still have that very specific Abu flavor. So glad to see you mapping again!  :Smile:

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## Meshon

The map is beautiful, great use of a narrow colour palatte.

And the border is so much good, perfect

Cheers,
Meshon

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

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## The Lazy One

Very nice, and great color palette indeed!

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## MistyBeee

Looks amazing so far  :Smile: 
I love the mountains look, and those forests are just perfect !

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## ThomasR

Let's go to the finished map section, shall we  :Smile:

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## Abu Lafia

Another small piece with a classic motiv  :Wink: 

Pen & watercolour on A6 Paper

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## ThomasR

Holly 8@lls ! I wish I had such mastery of my brushes ... And the mountains are back !!!  :Smile:

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## Ilanthar

So glad to see you back! And nice little floating island  :Smile: .

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