Category: Work-In-Progress

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I will send you instantaneous telegrams.

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.

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Gamblers’ Key is almost done.

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.

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Gamblers’ Key (Work-in-Progress)

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!

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Château de Chenonceau (Work-in-Progress)

These are the lower two levels of the Château de Chenonceau. The two floors above these are also finished and the whole thing is ready to be colored.

When I draw real places, I do a lot of research and I think it pays off. One of the most interesting things about this place wasn’t in any of the floor plans I found, old or new. I actually discovered it from an instagram video I stumbled across. Apparently, there are stairs leading from the basement kitchens down into the water below the castle. In addition to just being really cool, it gives the place a semi-secret entrance to enter or leave by, which is always a nice option to give a party, should they make the effort to look for it.

I’d normally expect this to take about three days to color and finish up, but I’m going to be going camping for a couple days, so it’ll be a little longer than that. I wanted to let you all know in case anyone needs to send me any messages in that time. It’s completely fine if you do, it just might take a few days before I can get back to you.

Anyway, I’ll be leaving tomorrow, but I’m going to try to get as much work done on this as I can before then!

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The Cobalt Flotilla (Work-In-Progress)

These are the upper decks of the flotilla. The three levels below this are pretty close to finished as well, so I should only need another couple days to get it done. I hope no one was expecting this to be a reasonable-sized map, because it definitely will not be.

Okay, I’ve gotta go to sleep.

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I made a slight miscalculation.

The other day, I said I’d be coloring and releasing these ships one at a time. At some point, it occurred to me that that’s insane and that it’d be much faster to color them all together and post the separate maps afterwards. So I put all the decks of all the ships into one image to do that and… well, this is what that looks like.

The main thing I’m trying to say is that this might take a little longer than I’d originally expected. That’s 17 ships and boats, with a combined 35 decks. Which is kind of a lot. Anyway, I may need a couple more days on this, so I wanted to let everyone know. Well, I’m gonna dive back in! I’ll be back when I’ve got them done.

By the way, that raft in the bottom right is the Kon-Tiki. Okay, back to work.

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This is all of the ships.

Sorry for the crappy photo, the only decent camera I currently have access to is the one on my wife’s phone and she’s out of town.

This is all of the ships in the Cobalt Flotilla, crammed into one picture as best as I could. The plan from here is this: I’m going to color these individually and post the maps of the larger ships as they get done. After that, I’ll finish coloring the rest, put them all together into one map and post that. And then I’ll post the smaller boats as tokens.

All in all, I’d guess this will take 5-6 days and you’ll be getting about six maps in all. Five of the big ships, plus one of the whole flotilla. Okay, I’m gonna stop typing and get to work!

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The Cobalt Flotilla (Work-In-Progress)

As it turns out, drawing an island made of boats requires a lot of boats. I’ve got two and a half more pages of boats drawn on top of this. Two more and we should be good.

I think this is gonna be pretty cool. All right, I’m gonna go draw more boats.

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Deep Gnome Mining Outpost (Work-In-Progress)

These are the upper two levels of the deep gnome settlement I’m working on. I decided it’d be abandoned after raiders sacked the place, since I think this would be much more interesting to explore as a dungeon than as a town. In any case, there’ll be an unfurnished version as well.

I don’t typically write adventures for my maps, but inspiration struck me with this and I have… let’s call it the framework of an adventure for you. There are a couple details you need to plug in, but it’s basically all there. It’s nothing complicated, but I think it’d be fun.

By the way, the picture above is the scan of the drawings. Normally, I just take a photo when I post work-in-progress pics, but, at the moment, the only camera I have access to is the one on my wife’s Kindle. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to take a decent picture with that thing and failing miserably. This is the best photo I could get that potato to take. The worst wouldn’t even be identifiable as a drawing, haha.

Anyway, all the drawing is done for this and I’m in the middle of coloring it now. I’d better get back to it!

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Kuo Toa-Village – Work-In-Progress

I’m in the middle of coloring this at the moment. There are also a series of underwater caverns below, but I’ll show you those when it’s done.

The main thing the kuo-toa in this village do is capture travelers to serve as slaves or sacrifices. This is one of the reasons people stay at the godawful inn nearby. When the choice is either sleeping on a bed that smells like weapons-grade cat urine or getting brutally sacrificed to an imaginary fish goddess, most people would choose the former.