# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > General and Miscellaneous Mapping >  Kai's sketchbook

## KaiAeon

The aim of this thread is to invite critique and catalogue my growth as a mapmaker. So, please feel free to critique my work and advise me.

The first piece I will share is the first map I consider complete. It's  complete because I finished it with ink. I can see a lot of areas for improvement - too many to list. Yet I'm happy with it because it's not a half-finished map like many others of mine. The name of the region I just pulled  out of thin air.  It holds no significance really. Athrimu is the name.

I actually  wanted to participate  in the July/August 2020 Lite Challenge but thought it best to finish this map instead.

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## Ilanthar

Looks good, but it's a bit hard to say more because of the small size of the picture.

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## KaiAeon

@Ilanthar Thank you for the feedback. I'll see what I can do about the image size.

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## JoshStolarz

Hey Kai, the map looks pretty good from what I can see. If you are looking for feedback I would say to try and give some more depth to your forests, since they look relatively flat with some detail trees scattered about. Try to think of how you can imply the rises and falls of the terrain below the trees to add some interest. 

Looks like you’re off to a good start though!
- Josh

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## KaiAeon

Thanks, Josh. I will try and do that in my next map. I'm currently working on a different mountain style that will allow for trade routes to be drawn. I'll post a wip early next month.

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## KaiAeon

I've been working on drawing forests for the past few days a la Jared Blando's style. The pic is an example of my latest creation. Any feedback is welcome.

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## Ilanthar

Nice! This is a method that requires a lot of patience and a certain amount of love for forests...

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## KaiAeon

Thanks. I added a third section with denser trees and two hills which need a lot more work.

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## KaiAeon

So, asI said, I am playing around with drawing coniferous forests using Jared Blando's style. However,  I didn't like the stark contrast between the pitch black shadows and white capped trees pictured in previous posts. So, I decided to play around with cross hatching and some grey brush pens. 

My cross hatching technique needs a lot more work. (Granted that this is my first foray into shading using cross hatching. My 8th grade art teacher never taught me this and I never learned it on my own. All I knew about shading as a kid and teenager was colouring in with a pencil and smudging for gradation.)

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## KaiAeon

For now, I settled on a fusion with the style of @JoshStolarz

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## KaiAeon

Just wanted to update you guys on what I'm busy with at the moment.  I'm practicing settlement iconography.

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## KaiAeon

Just playing around with watercolour pencils

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## KaiAeon

Some more experiments in my sketchbook. The paper is not watercolour paper.

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## KaiAeon

Playing around with different techniques.

Panel 1 (top left): I used a paper palette to add colour.
Panel 2 (top right): I used a wet brush to obtain colour from the pencil before painting the panel. The aim was to experiment with the colour of the ocean.
Panel 3 (bottom right): I used the same technique as in panel 2. The green island received a base coat of okra followed by light green and dark green.
Panel 4 (bottom left): I used the same technique as in panel 2, outlined the planet with pencil and used cerulean blue for the ocean and okra for the land. The polar ice cap was coloured white.

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## KaiAeon

I tried my hand at some marshes and heraldry. Do you have any advice on how I can improve the marshlands in terms of water richness and in other way?

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## KaiAeon

Some more experiments with watercolour pencils

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## Ilanthar

I really like the one with the boat!

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## KaiAeon

Thanks! 

I've been practicing drawing and colouring boats with the aim participating in the lite challenge. We'll see how it goes though.

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## TimetoDraw

Ahh, do I recognise some techniques from Jared Blando? 

I was given his book at Christmas and it inspired a burst of map-making from me again. 

The marshes look good, maybe a more desaturated shade would indicate marshland better. Perhaps a wading bird or narrow puddles if it's a large stretch and you want to fill it out with some landmarks.

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## KaiAeon

> Ahh, do I recognise some techniques from Jared Blando? 
> 
> I was given his book at Christmas and it inspired a burst of map-making from me again. 
> 
> The marshes look good, maybe a more desaturated shade would indicate marshland better. Perhaps a wading bird or narrow puddles if it's a large stretch and you want to fill it out with some landmarks.


Yeah, I bought Jared Blando's books on regional maps and city maps. It's the main source of my techniques.

Thanks for your advice on the marshes. I will experiment with them. 

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## KaiAeon

Practicing on watercolour paper before I colour my entry for the February map challenge. 

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## KaiAeon

I need advice on cliffs and shading for the Broken Isles map I am working on. Which of these six cliffs and shading look best? Do you have any advice to give?



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## KaiAeon

Some more experiments working on shading (colour and line art).

So, again, any advice is welcome.









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## Simkin

Hi KayAeon, I prefere options 1 and 6 because allow to show the entire island.

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## KaiAeon

Thanks for your input, simkin. 


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## KaiAeon

Here is another eggmap I am working on. I started painting it this morning. 

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## KaiAeon

### LATEST WIP ###


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## KaiAeon

Paint drying

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## Arimel

I thought I had subscribed to this thread a long time ago. I guess not and have missed many great posts. I love the egg maps and the water colored islands above also shaped out pretty well. Even though it is rather simple, post 21's island image is very clean and nice.

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## KaiAeon

Thank you, Arimel.

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## KaiAeon

So I finished the egg map. I'm not happy with the brush strokes. I think that my application of the watercolour ground played a significant role. If you have any advice to give, please feel free to do so.

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## Josiah VE

This is fantastic!!

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## KaiAeon

Thank you  :Very Happy:

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## KaiAeon

Preparation of egg maps underway. 1 1/2 to 2 coats of watercolour ground done. More coats and smoothing to be done.

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## KaiAeon

I started dabbling with dip pens as my local art supply store stopped stocking the Pigma Micron fineliner sets I used to buy. (I do have back up sets though.) Anyway, this is my latest map. It is still a work in progress as I need to add more detail lines. 

I'm using:
- Brevillier's Creatacolor Calligraphy ink (black)
- Speedball dip pen and nibs
- Prime Art A5 watercolour paper
- Rofles 2H and HB pencils

I must still decide if I will colour the map...

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## KaiAeon

I finished the map...

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## KaiAeon

Some doodles

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## Skaald

the second one seems almost in 3D. How do you do to make your lines pop so much ? Is there a second grey line almost invisible to shade the lines ?

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## KaiAeon

The second (grey) line are the residue of the pencil markings I erased. I still press too hard on the pencil when sketching. It's an old habit of mine that i'm working on breaking. I recently began adopted holding my pencils as I do with the dip pens and it does work. But will take some getting used to.

I created those two "doodles" with a dip pen so the line widths vary naturally.

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## KaiAeon

A simple suburban map

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## KaiAeon

Playing around with some sand dunes, but these look more like hills

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## rdanhenry

Dunes are just nomadic hills, so they're going to look similar. Throw a sandy color wash onto those and I think they'll do fine as dunes.

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## KaiAeon

I will give it a try.

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## Arimel

I think they look alright as dunes. It all comes down to the scale and color (for my maps at least! My dunes tend to have less substantial edges but seem to be the same size, in many cases, to my hills).




> Dunes are just nomadic hills, so they're going to look similar. Throw a sandy color wash onto those and I think they'll do fine as dunes.


I love this description. I can just picture a hill with a small bag-on-a-stick over its shoulder walking into the distance  :Very Happy:

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## KaiAeon

Thanks, @Arimel

I played around with some colours and changed the shape of the sand dunes.

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## Simkin

Hhi kai, good work with colours, but I think dunes are more "soft". Softer than the first version (those that seems like hills).

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## KaiAeon

Hi Simkin, I will try what you said. I was going for a blend between the texturing of the hilly dunes and that proposed by Josh Storlaz. 

Here's an oasis I tried my hand at. 

Back to the drawing board...

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## KaiAeon

Some more experiments with sand dunes...

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## Arimel

That looks pretty good to me! Those actually look like palm trees instead of the windmills I create  :Very Happy: 

Edit: Despite just missing beating the latest post, my comment still stands. 

What size are you doing these tests in?

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## KaiAeon

Thanks, Arimel!

I'm using the 1inch map format (1" × 1") that @XploringMap made a challenge of earlier in the year.

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## XploringMap

Looks really good, great work!

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## Arimel

All of that detail is in a 1x1 inch area??? That is really impressive!

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## KaiAeon

Thank you, XploringMap!

Here are 2 pages out of my sketchbook...

I'm currently working on improving my linework and values.

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## KaiAeon

Working on some clouds and borders...

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## KaiAeon

1 inch desert map made with a half-pan watercolour set.

1 inch map for practice

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## Simkin

I love those tiny maps Kai. Well done.

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## KaiAeon

Thank you, Simkin.

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## KaiAeon

Messing around with a map element...

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## KaiAeon

I started a new project: a star map of the story I'm writing/working on. I'm still in the world building phase (have been for who knows how long?). 

Anyway, this is the pencil sketch of Salastador Galaxy. The plan is to make a background using watercolour paint and use markers for the stars and planets, but we'll see how it goes. I will most probably put this in a thread of its own later on.

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## Arimel

Looks like a good start. I am glad someone else pencils in lines like that for labels on their maps!

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## KaiAeon

Thank you, @Arimel 

I'm having trouble classifying settlements as a town or city. This is a rough sketch I did for the August 2021 Mapping Challenge. Is the scale of the settlement that of a town or a city (minus the city wall, of course)?

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## wminish

Hey Kai, I find this resource (Medieval demographics made easy) to be a really useful tool for estimating settlement sizes and working out how large a settlement should be to support a given population. From a quick count of the number of buildings, I would estimate this settlement to be in the 1000 - 2000 population range, putting it down the small end of towns as defined by this document.

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## KaiAeon

> Hey Kai, I find this resource (Medieval demographics made easy) to be a really useful tool for estimating settlement sizes and working out how large a settlement should be to support a given population. From a quick count of the number of buildings, I would estimate this settlement to be in the 1000 - 2000 population range, putting it down the small end of towns as defined by this document.


Thank you, wminish. I will definitely check it out...

So, it can be classified as a small town. The article says that politically important towns have walls.

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## Arimel

Urbanization is a huge debate in the field of history... Population size is just one factor in many cases for the definition. Monument types (religious buildings, palaces, etc.), administrative functions, population density (particularly in relation to the surrounding rural region), written record, wealth differences, and specialization of crafts. So, depending on how many of these factors a settlement possesses the degree of urbanization for the settlement would change. 
However, this just helps in defining urbanism, not exactly classifying town vs city. 

That pdf is amazing though and definitely getting added to my inspiration folder.

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## KaiAeon

Those are good points to consider, @Arimel. 

Here is a tester for the desert map I'm happy with.

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## KaiAeon

Working on some "scapes" for the Demoor Town map.

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## KaiAeon

Playing around with linework for horses. This is my first attempt. There's quite a number of things to fine tune.

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## KaiAeon

Thought I'd share a recent thumbnail I did in preparation for the this month's Lite Mapping Challenge. My shading technique needs more work.

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## kumarrsushil501

Nice! This is a method that requires a lot of patience and a certain amount of love for forests...

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## KaiAeon

This past month I participated in a variant of Inktober, 31 Day Worldbuild, by using (dip) pen and ink in a 1 inch map format. Here is the prompt list:



And this my interpretation thereof:

 

Day 28 (frozen fjord) is a total bust as i made flowing river instead of a frozen one. So it goes.

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## Neyasha

Wonderful project! It's amazing how much details you manage to show on these tiny maps. The whole layout looks very cool.

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## KaiAeon

Thank you! I'm a stickler for detail. At some point the thought of getting a magnifying glass crossed my mind so that I could fit more detail in, but I will leave that for the future. 

All the best with your Mapvember project! I'm looking forward to seeing your creations.

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## KaiAeon

I started working on building the world of my 4th story. The other 3 I haven't written yet but I do have extensive notes on each of them. In short, the 4th story came into being because I decided to explore the world of the 2nd story (a vampire story) through a series of short story. The 4th story is about dragons and I seem to find a place for all the maps I have drawn thus far. Anyway, the initial setting of story no. 4 is an archipelago. I wanted to do it in a different style as I still have to identify places of interest -- enough for an isometric feature map. So, I decided to go with a top down map style. 

Please critique my map especially the style of the mountain which I think still has too many lines. The maps will be grey scale (india ink wash) as I'm focusing on the basics for now. I will move on to colour and colour theory at a later date. 

This particular map is 1 sq. inch and coloured with grey markers.

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## KaiAeon

Here are the mountains on a larger scale. 


Edit: I finished inking the map. The next step is an ink wash. I decided to do a nameless map because I'm trying out a new style.

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## KaiAeon

The sea is done. I might darken some areas later. Next is the shading of mountains, forests and hills.

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## KaiAeon

Zooming in on the islands that comprise Khig Darim.

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## KaiAeon

A top down mountain range I am finally happy with. The ridge lines do not need to be jagged. The lines are merely suggestions. Less is more. Use wet on wet for shading (not done in the pic below). The moutain range was drawn with Hunt nibs 102 and 104.

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## KaiAeon

Following are my first two dungeon maps ever made. They were made in preparation for the Dec '21 - Feb '22 Lite Challenge.  I am still to decide whether I will make a village or a dungeon. Anyhoo, I thought I'd share my first two dungeons. These are photos. I need to learn how to remove the unused dots from the page. The dungeons were inked with a dip pen.

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## KaiAeon

This week is dungeon week for me. I practiced using the following random watabou dungeon: 
 

Here is the pencil sketch:


And the inked map (no shading):

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## KaiAeon

I finished the border of Norsandway Village, my entry for the Dec/Feb '22 Lite Challenge.  Next is the ink wash.

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## KaiAeon

I finished another egg map made with pigma micron fineliners and watercolour paint. I applied paper varnish to seal the watercolour paint. I'm quite happy with how my little experiment turned out.

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## KaiAeon

I came up with this set of random tables to help me focus my growth as a cartographer and illustrator. The goal is to focus on one subject per month producing at least 1 map or illustration per month, hopefully more. Life has been hectic so I haven't been drawing as much and I have so many things I want to improve on in terms of my art. The random table set has been set up on the premise of doing something is better than nothing. So, my map drawing study is not as structured as it could be.

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## KaiAeon

The 4th compartment of a 4 compartment map I'm working on. This is an Alchemist lab in the making. I still need to add the following rooms: storage, alchemy lab, treatment/experiment room, and animal/beast holding room and a small study/office.

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## KaiAeon

Some dragon heads I've been working on for future border art

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## Arimel

I really like those blue ones. The one with the curved horns looks a bit too much like an oxe for me  :Very Happy:

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## KaiAeon

It does, eh?

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## KaiAeon

Here's another dragon I'm pretty chuffed with.

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## wminish

Very nice, I really like the antler, though is it only supposed to have one?

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## KaiAeon

Thanks. Yes/no. I was going for a side profile view with only one antler showing.

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## RenflowerGrapx

I love the last one, I like the antler and the palette you went with! The purple-ish gray fits just right!

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