# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Board Game Mapping >  Wargame map- Son of the Dragon  (WIP)

## timallen

Hi all:

Well, I got another project handed to me by the boys at White Dog Games.  Its a game that will cover the Real, historical battles of Count Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler, as he was known to his buddies ;-).

First I was told they wanted a 11x17 map and that the hexes would have to hold 6/8 inch square counters.  Then they sent me the prototype artwork done by the designer.  Not what you'd call a work of art, but it does show where everything should go.

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## timallen

I talked (emailed actually) a fair amount with the designer and publisher to get a better idea of what this should look like.  They wanted a more-or-less green map as they were going to have counters that would be predominantly white with red and burnt orange colours and they wanted the green to make them stand out.  There are three different kinds of man-made terrain- castles, cities, and walled cities.  

Last night I fired up the ol'espresso machine and went at it for 4-5 hours strait.  By the end of the night (early morning actually) I had made up the following map.  Looks pretty good I think.  I used some good tips picked up here on the forums to make the mountains, which I think worked out great.  The cities are grabbed  out of CC3.  They look a bit out of place I think.  Have to fiddle with them still.  Maybe they just need toning down...dunno.  They seem out of place somehow.

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## Steel General

Looks pretty nice, though a larger/higher-rez version would be better.

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## timallen

I can do that.

I never know how large I should make them.  Is there a limit to the number or size of the images we can post?

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## Steel General

There is a megapixel count and/or size limit: Approx 33Mpxl or 4.7MB (depending on the file type)

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## timallen

Here is a larger image.

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## hohum

You have some round brush marks (eraser) between 0308/0408. It isn't as much of a problem with the higher res, but for some reason for me it always takes a second for my eye to not think that the peaks are actually valleys. I'm not sure why that is but I find it disturbing. The towns look okay, but stand out because everything else has a soft focus (blur). Not a bad looking map.

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## timallen

Thanks for pointing that out.  I would have completely missed it otherwise.  The towns have been softened up and the brush marks fixes.  Not sure how to fix the valley vs peaks problem.  It looks OK to me but I know what you mean.  I have the same problem with bevels in photoshop- sometimes I cant figure out if I'm what I am looking at  is concave or convex.

The designer sent me more changes.  A "trade route" is now in the center of the map (a road connecting some of the cities), one new city, names for most of the rivers, and shields/banners for the cities that start allied to certain factions.  The shields are a nice addition; they add more period theme and flavor, IMO.  

Drat!  I forgot my files at home.  I'll have to post an image update later tonight or tomorrow.

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## timallen

Here we go. I think I am pretty close to being done.  I've sent a copy off to White Dog Games and am just waiting to hear back.

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## Aval Penworth

Don't worry, it looks very good. Even though the rivers don't make sense  :Smile: . I hope they sell a bucket-load of games and give you big bonus cheque.

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## hohum

Looks good, I like the heraldry. Your maps make me want to dust off the old wargames again.

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## timallen

After a short vacation I'm back at it.  This is the next iteration of the Dragon map.  Some additional cities and castles from the designer.  I also played around a fair amount with the background textures.  The publisher, who doubles as a game developer, wanted less fuzziness, and didnt like the "happy" green colour of the last background.  Hopefully this one is dark enough for him.  I don want to go too dark, as its already starting to mess with the hex grid, which I think I now need to lighten.  The Woods dont look right either.  Gotta play with that some more too.



Dangit!  The background doesnt look at all like that in photoshop.  I hate when that happens.

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## timallen

I'm still working on the Dragon map.  Here is version 10.  Lots of little changes and a general lightening up of the look.  The hex numbers were unreadable on the darker version.

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## verdilak

How do you get those castles/buildings? Are they just free tiles or whatnot for CC3? Very cool that you are getting paid for it!

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## timallen

Here is the latest version of the Dragon map.  Yes I did get the castles and cities off of CC3.  The latest changes were to add in the "princedoms" (the red dashed lines and names) along with giving all cities and castles a shield to show who starts with what.  I think this is pretty close now to what Dennis (the designer) wanted.

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