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?
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!
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!
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:
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.
That’s one 13-story tower, ready to be colored. How do you like it so far?
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.
While I’m not generally a big fan of social media, I am a big fan of getting more feedback on my work, so I recently made an Instagram account.
I probably would’ve done this sooner, but I don’t actually own a smartphone. Yes, I know, I am the world’s youngest 90-year-old man. Still, if you want to see fantasy maps posted from a phone emulator on a desktop by a person who began using Instagram in late 2021, go ahead and follow me.
Also, I have one question for people who didn’t start using Instagram yesterday: is it okay to post pictures sideways, or do people hate that? Some maps only fit that way, but if it’s considered obnoxious, I’ll stop.
Okay, I’m gonna go color the thing in the picture.
This is the finished first level. I’ve been giving this map some extra love, but the rest is almost done too. I’ve gotta finish up a few more details, draw a sideview, and write the DM notes, but I should have it all done in about two days. Also, I hope you like that water, because that is probably the best-looking water I’ve ever drawn.
Okay, back to work.
These are the lower two levels of the pirate fortress/gambling hall I’m working on. All this is underground. There’s a third level above this showing the top of the island and the buildings above ground, but I ran out of room on my desk.
On the bottom floor, you’ve got storage, sleeping quarters and facilities for receiving stolen goods. Then, on the left side of the floor above, you’ve got the gambling hall. And on both levels, there are a variety of places to fire cannons from in case the cops show up.
Anyway, I’m gonna get back to coloring this. Hope you like it so far!
