# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Pen and Paper / Traditional Methods >  The kingdom of Macer

## Simkin

Hi all, that's the map I'm working at now.  That would be a D&D base setting for a new campaign and is vaguely inspired to my birth province in Italy.

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## Simkin

Hi all, I did something new ...

--- WIP ---


and I've just finished the first part of the map:

The domain of the great Gold Dragon
_The kingdom of Macer was born from the alliance of an adult Gold Dragon and the first king of the Macer dinasty (Alberto il Grande). The human hero helped the gold dragon to defeat the ancient red dragon that ruled this land from his home, located in the mountain at the center of "Cielo Caduto" (the big crater in the map).
Together, man and dragon, won and formed the new Kingdom. Since then, the dragon has his own part of the territory. For royal decree, it is forbidden to enter the vast area under the domain of the dragon (for this reason the map is "covered" with the silouette of the dragon).
Only those invited from the now Ancient wyrm, could enter the wild and misterious territory.
The allance is so strong that the cult of Bahamut has many churches here and a big santuary. The local version of the church is devoted to the proteccion of the gold dragon nd is so bind to that rule, that the symbol of the cult is a diamond, symbolizing the shape of the dragon territory._

  --- last WIP ---


Now I have a question (I have hundreds of questions,but I'm finding lot of answers in the posts of the forum). Sometimes, when I draw the first version with pencil, I press too much and  a little mark remains on the paper like in the foto.

... and when I go to paint with my color pencil, I'm not able to fill the white lines. How can I fix this problem? Thank u

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## Simkin

Hi, my last WIP, but before only few things:

I drawned all by hand, the only thing I did on computer is the little labeling under the cities (I drowned the shape on paper, scanned and copied with the names of places). I Used fineliner staedler and Faber Castell color pencils on Bristol ...


This is the map of the Principality of Helvia Recina, the capitol city of the whole kingdom. Here are the maps of the city:



Hope for some suggestion, opinion and costructive critics... 

Bye

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## Bindusara

In your city, you made quarter full of houses. Even in the middle of the quarter, without road leading to it. That's quite strange : it seems that each quarter is a wall of houses. No garden, no street, even little ones (you know that road 1m large that are so common in medieval cities)

Your city is on a hill, but on a aztec pyramidal hill : one level for the city, one level for the castle. We lack the fact that a quarter is build on a slope. It's not easy putting that in a city. You add two stairways : good idea. You can make transversal little street made of one or several stairways (you know : four steps, plateform, 5 steps, platform etc). You can make the reader feel the slope this way.

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## Simkin

> In your city, you made quarter full of houses. Even in the middle of the quarter, without road leading to it. That's quite strange : it seems that each quarter is a wall of houses. No garden, no street, even little ones (you know that road 1m large that are so common in medieval cities)
> 
> Your city is on a hill, but on a aztec pyramidal hill : one level for the city, one level for the castle. We lack the fact that a quarter is build on a slope. It's not easy putting that in a city. You add two stairways : good idea. You can make transversal little street made of one or several stairways (you know : four steps, plateform, 5 steps, platform etc). You can make the reader feel the slope this way.


Thank you for the suggestions. For the streets in the quarters you are right, I made them this way to symbolize that streets are really narrows so the roof close the wiew from above, but this is not understable so my fault. For the lack of ... tridimensional...  I have to find ways to make the map better as u said. Btw the map of the city was a first attemp of mapping... so I hope to do better next time. 

... and sorry for my poor english...

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## Simkin

Hi, this my new WIP ... 



I hope to finish the map next week, then I will try to write a better background for the kingdom.

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## Adfor

> Sometimes, when I draw the first version with pencil, I press too much and  a little mark remains on the paper like in the foto.


Heavier paper can help, also softer graphite pencils are an option, but the softer the lead, the more they smudge, so beware. Not pressing as hard is probably your best bet though. If you pencil in everything at once, you almost have to press hard so that the lines don't become a blur by the time you're finished, that's a fine line to walk. Maybe look at your approach to the piece, I personally progress in a sectioned pencil-ink-color fashion to avoid the whole piece becoming one dark graphite smudge (it's inevitable), and that also allows me to sketch lightly because I'm so quick to ink and color.

Hope that helps, your work is only going to get better with practice, nice penmanship so far, kudos.

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## Simkin

Great advice Adfor, I will try to do as u say, sketch a little and then ink and color. Thanks a lot.

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## Simkin

Hi, finally I,ve finished the hand work, now I will put some label with GIMP and probably I will cover the horrible left-up corner . 

I've made a lot of experiments, someones works others not, but at the end all  are XPs, so I'm happy with the general result. 

--Latest WIP---

I will post the final result in the Finished Maps section. Bye

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## Simkin

sorry... this is the image

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