I just wanted to show you the ground floor and sideview of the map I’m working on at the moment. There are another 6 floors above this and I’m about to start scanning and coloring it all. What do you think so far?
Submerged Temple (Work-in-Progress)
Here’s the top level of the submerged kuo-toan temple in the Black Loch. There are three floors below this and I should have them all done in a day or two.
By the way, I mentioned earlier that I was taking proposals for a new location in the loch and that all patrons were welcome to submit proposals. I originally estimated that there might be 40+ proposals in all, but I may have overestimated, because I currently have 11. So, if you’re a patron who was thinking about submitting an idea for the vote, your chances may be better than previously expected. Anyway, you’ve still got another week to shoot me a message if you want to propose a location.
Okay, back to work!
Man-O-War-Class Spelljammer (Work-in-Progress)
The Man-O-War comes equipped with side-impact airbags, power windows, authentic white rhino leather seats (from a planet where there are millions of them) and a standard 4-year manufacturer’s warranty. Low APR financing available, see your Nissan dealer for details.
Couple more days and this should be done.
Town on a Bridge (Work-in-Progress)
Inking all this took a little longer than I expected, but here’s the town on a bridge. There are two levels on top of the bridge deck and another one underneath. The town has a tavern, a livery, various shops, a few gardens and a few empty buildings so you can add in whatever you need that isn’t there.
I’ve got a little bit left to ink tonight and then I’ll start on the color tomorrow. Anyway, what do you think so far?
Mountainous Island Settlement (Almost Finished)
I wanted to show you what’s been taking so long. The rest of the island is done as well, I just need to color the interiors of the buildings. That should take one more day, two at most.
By the way, this island is based largely on Skellig Michael in Ireland. My wife convinced me to draw the buildings like the ones they have there, which are very unique. Which is to say, they’re big, stone beehives.
Anyway, I’m going to try hard to finish this up tomorrow, so I’d better get back to work!
Mountainous Island Settlement (Work-In-Progress)
As sometimes happens with me, I started on this map with relatively humble plans, which ended up becoming a bit more grand. I’ve spent the last week drawing this island and now I just need to draw some buildings to put on it and we’ll have our town. I think I’m going to draw some caves underneath it as well, but I’m not sure yet.
Anyway, this is a real island and I’m curious if any of you would recognize it. At least 50% of you have seen it before, probably more like two thirds. Not in person, but it was in a movie from the last ten years. Also, there’s a location in a popular video game named after it. I’d guess that 5-10% of you have played it. Feel free to leave a comment and I’ll tell you if you’re right.
Okay, back to work!
Fort Bourtange – Second Update
This is the linework for Fort Bourtange finished and ready for coloring. I’m planning to crop this map to a few different sizes, since I don’t think most people will need this much space around the fort. This will be the largest size, however, and is intended for people who want to do something crazy with it, like have a full-on battle between two armies. I’m not gonna lie, the grid size on it is absurd.
I also wanted to mention that I’m not going to draw the upper levels of the buildings here. The best way to explain the reason is that I think including them makes the map worse. They’re all small– mostly attics and lofts– and there’s nothing interesting going on up there. If I include them, that means doubling the size of an already huge map, which means more to load on a VTT or more to print for the table. Mont-St-Michel had interesting stuff on the upper levels, but this place doesn’t and I think it’s better to just leave it at one floor. Hopefully, everybody’s cool with that.
Before I get to coloring this, I want to share a few things I’ve learned while doing research for this map:
- William the Silent, who ordered the construction of Fort Bourtange, looked like this. I have never seen a 500-year-old portrait of someone who looks anywhere near as badass as that. Everyone else is a ponce in a wig. But that dude? That dude is serious.
- Fort Bourtange has three drawbridges. One of them has a bathroom on it and it’s still in use. Don’t swim in the moat.
- This is unrelated to the fort, but super interesting: Grutte Pier was an early Renaissance Dutch man the size of Andre the Giant. A mercenary group called the Black Band raided his village and killed his wife, after which Pier started a peasant rebellion. Later, he became a pirate. This guy was the D&D character you created when you were 15, except he was real. This was his sword.
Fort Bourtange – An Update
Here’s where things are at with Fort Bourtange. This is all of the fort’s structures, including about 40 buildings, 6 bridges, a few wells, some watch posts and a windmill. The next step is to scan all this, arrange everything and draw in the rest.
While I normally draw almost everything on paper, I’m going to be drawing the rest of this map on my pen tablet. That means the landscape, moats, trees, plants and so on. I don’t think you’ll notice any difference, I just want to let everyone know what the plan is.
Finally, after the lines are done, I’ll be coloring it, which will probably take a week or so. I’ve been hoping to get this done by the end of the month and I’d say things are on track for that so far.
On a side note, here’s something interesting I learned. There are about 50 residents of Fort Bourtange today. That seems like a pretty unusual place to live, right? Like, if you told someone you lived in a star fort surrounded by a moat in the Netherlands, you’d imagine that would narrow down the location quite a bit. That’d have to be here, right?
No. There are five places in the Netherlands that fit that description. Five. Fort Bourtange, Naarden, Heusden, Brielle and Willemstad. Apparently, there are thousands of Dutch people just casually living in star forts in the year 2021.
Man, I really have to go there one of these days.
The Floating Tower (Work-in-Progress)
That’s one 13-story tower, ready to be colored. How do you like it so far?
The Floating Tower (Work-In-Progress)
Here’s a sketch of the 13-story tower I’ve been working on. I wasn’t originally planning to draw something completely insane here, but then I came up with this design and now I am. Anyway, what do you think?
Also, just a heads-up: this map and the next map are both going to have windmills. Things are going to get pretty Dutch around here for a little while, I hope everyone’s prepared for that.