# Community Participation > Mapping Challenge Archive >  March 2016 Challenge: Silver Hollow

## Greg

Okay, now the Lite challenge is out of the way (well, almost), I'm going to dedicate a bit of time to enter in my first big challenge. The Lite challenge before last was a crypt/tomb, so I don't think I'll be doing another one of those just yet. 

Instead, I'm going to map out Silver Hollow, a city located underneath the surface in a large underground cavern. I haven't really created any lore behind it, and I might do as I go along, but we'll just have to wait and see.  :Smile: 

Anywho, not much done so far, as I've only really just started, but here is a pretty rough painterly background for the cavern done in photoshop. I plan to add in the city in the bottom left in a less abstract and more clear style done on paper and scanned in.

### Latest WIP ###

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## Lingon

Interesting start! Is that a river coming in from a cave opening?

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## Greg

Kind of, _hopefully_  it will become more clear as I progress!  :Smile:

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## Greg

Decided to make this my first all digital map, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Anyway, I'm still hand-drawing every element of it so have just started the time consuming process of constructing some assets for it. So here are the assets for a tower and one of the styles of house.



I plan to do make all the elements separately then add them to the final piece, where, hopefully, I can blend them into a finished piece. I'll just have to wait and find out how it turns out.  :Smile:

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## Greg

Okay, here are a couple more buildings for the town. Two different styles of housing and a basic tavern.

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## ChickPea

These are cute. I really like the stonework.

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## Tonnichiwa

Wow GLS! you can draw like that and you think my maps are good?  :Question:  If I could draw like that my maps would be so awesome. I really love the way you drew your buildings.
I can't seem to get used to my Wacom tablet and pen. And even if I could my art wouldn't look much different than the drawing I posted first in my thread for this challenge.  :Frown: 

Anyway, I really like what I am seeing here and can't wait to see what you do with it.

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## Greg

@ChickPea, Thanks, I'm pleased you like them!  :Smile: 

@Tonnichiwa, Thank you for saying so.  :Smile:  I haven't really drawn much until doing maps, and sometimes things come out well for me and other times they don't. Drawing with a tablet and pen is weird and I find it harder to get the lines I want compared to doing it on paper. But, at the same time, I can erase things and try them again much more easily. I really liked your start with your start with the Underworld and hope you continue with it, as I thought it was pretty well drawn and captured the essence I felt you were after and to me that is more important in a map.  :Smile:

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## Greg

Okay, here's an update on the actual map this time. I've started adding in a few elements as well as a key. I plan to blend in all the buildings and everything a lot more before it is finished rather than them just looking like they've been planted there from nowhere (which obviously at this point they have  :Wink:  ).

Hope you like it!  :Smile: 

### Latest WIP ###


Still a lot more work to do on it though!

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## Southern Crane

This is really cool, I love the building styles.

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## Tonnichiwa

Nice, so far so good  :Smile:

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## ChickPea

It's starting to take shape and I like it. I wasn't entirely sure where you were going with this when you posted your first pic of the cavern background, but I like the direction it's going. The Lone Tower looks fantastic! It's so well done.

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## Greg

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone!  :Smile: 

I've now finished the biggest of the buildings, the Red Palace, which has been tough to do but I'm pretty pleased with it. Anyway, here it is:

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## Tonnichiwa

That looks fantastic GLS! What program do you use to make these pictures? Or is it all drawn on paper?

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## Greg

I wish it were drawn on paper! I probably could do them on paper but I'd make lots of mistakes in the process and in fact I was originally going to draw them by hand and scan them in to colour, but in the end thought I'd make this map my first entirely digital one. I have to say I am missing the old pen and paper, so definitely will be drawing in real life for the next one.  :Smile: 

I'm using a borrowed Wacom tablet and pen and an old copy of Photoshop CS2 (it would be very easy to use GIMP to do this to) to do them on, so I can erase my mistakes as I go. Also, it's good to have different layers to work on and then merge together afterwards, so when I'm colouring and doing finer details, if I want to erase something, it won't erase from the whole picture, just from the current selection. I've been drawing them a lot larger than they'll actually be so that I can put more detail in. Then once I'm finished and I've made it into a single layer, I export it to the overall map which I have open separately and scale it down to the size it needs to be.

Sorry that answers a bit more than you asked, but I thought you may be interested. If you want to know anything else just ask!  :Smile: 

*Also thanks for kind words!  :Very Happy:  I was pretty pleased with how it turned out*

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## Tonnichiwa

Not too much info at all. Thank you for answering my question. I know nothing about those kind of programs as I have only really done Profantasy software. I've been dying to make my own symbols of buildings for CC3 and CC+ but I can't draw so I'm stuck using other people's symbols  :Frown:

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## Lingon

The buildings look fantastic on their own, great job drawing them! But put together, I feel like the have a bit too much detail. The map becomes a bit cluttered, imo. A few stones and roof tiles here and there, to suggest form and texture without showing every single building block, works better… although that might just be me!

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## Greg

Cheers for the advice Lingon and the compliments. I think I can definitely see what you're saying, but in many ways this map grew larger than I anticipated and once I started the style I wanted to stick with it, as I just want to experiment with how things go. When I start properly piecing the final map together though, I plan to dilute some of these details somewhat and make things blend a bit more, but I guess we'll both have to wait and see to decide or not whether it works.  :Smile:

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## Carnifex

Looks reeeally good... I'd be very happy if you could succeed doing an undergrouund city (not just a city).

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## ThomasR

I have to say, I didn't knew where you were going with the first picture but the result is a really smart use of this picture. The blur gives the whole map an eerie feeling, I love it !

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## Greg

Thanks thormey, I wanted the background to be a bit more abstract for that exact reason!  :Smile: 




> Looks reeeally good... I'd be very happy if you could succeed doing an undergrouund city (not just a city).


Thanks, Carnifex. I have to admit that was a concern of mine during the process of doing this. It is technically underground in a cave complex, but from the perspective and approach I've taken, it's always been just a city map in many respects. There's nothing really I'm going to do about that now and like I say, _techinically_  it was always intended as a city under the surface of the earth, but I totally understand if people don't really think it properly fulfils what the challenge is asking for.

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## Greg

Okay, before I head off to bed, I thought I'd post another (very much) WIP on the overall map. Added a few more buildings, some of which I posted, others I didn't. Also a wall and a bridge which I literally just sketched in and haven't done much on yet, so don't rip them to pieces!  :Wink: 

### Latest WIP ###


Still plenty more work to do though, not least the blending of all the buildings into the background. I've already added a bit of haze on top of them, but also plan to make their connection with the ground more uneven as if they have been build on an actual surface and not just thrown in. Obviously plenty more buildings to add to this city first though.  :Smile:

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## Josiah VE

I agree with Thomrey on how I wasn't sure how the first picture was going but now it looks great. It's a very interesting style (which I like) and I am looking forward to seeing how it unfolds. Keep it up!

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## Chashio

This reminds me of the main city in Fairyland Below, from Catherynne M. Valente's series.  :Smile:  I'm enjoying your progress on this.

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## Falconius

I couldn't tell at all where this was going at the beginning, but apparently it was to a very fun style.  Definitely a vary fairyesque vibe going on.

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## Greg

Okie doke, I have not had anywhere near as much time as I was expecting to work on this over the last couple of days, so I don't know if it will be completely completed by the end of the challenge...  :Confused: 

But still, I've got a day left and I'm going to try!  :Very Happy: 

Thanks Chashio and Falconius for saying so. I didn't really think about that until you mentioned it, but yeah, I guess it is kind of a fairytale-esque style.  :Smile: 

Anywho, if I don't get around to doing anymore to this before the end, here is the most up-to-date version and in many ways is very much towards a final piece anyway!  :Smile: 
### Latest WIP ###

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## Chashio

Ooh  :Smile:  Nice update.

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## Tonnichiwa

It's been a while since I've looked at this but I gotta say GLS that I love it! Great job!. I love the buildings and the great stair that leads to the tower. I love the way you composed it and gave us a story to go with it.

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## Greg

Okay, it could be better and a bit more polished perhaps, but it's half midnight here and I want to go to bed! So here is SILVER HOLLOW in all her cavernous glory:

### Latest WIP ###


Thank you to everyone who helped me along the way with their constructive and kind comments!  :Smile: 

I hope you like it. It certainly grew bigger and bigger and more time consuming and the end week just flew by without me able to work on it much! Anyway, enough of the idle sleepy talk, decide for yourselves whether you think it fulfils the challenge criteria or not; regardless it was a good learning experience for me making a map in a different kind of style.  :Smile:

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