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St. Peter’s Basilica

St. Peter’s Basilica is finished. Well, provisionally finished. I really do hate posting the map without the background and surrounding buildings, but it’s necessary for now and I want to explain why.

Since I’m drawing all of Vatican City, I will eventually draw each building, but I need to draw them separately, because, in my experience, drawing part of a building is a good way to end up redrawing it later. And the map above includes not only the basilica, but part of the sacristy, the Apostolic Palace and a tiny bit of the Sistine Chapel. So I need to finish those first, then add them to this map, then draw in the background around them. In the long run, this is what gets Vatican City done faster and I hope everyone is okay with that.

Next up, I’ll be drawing a map of Mesa Verde, an ancient Native American settlement carved into a cliffside in the Rocky Mountains. I’ll try to draw it as it was when it was occupied, which I should be able to do, since archaeologists seem to have figured out what most of the buildings were for.

Anyway, I hope you like the basilica and I promise you that the surroundings will be drawn in eventually. I gave the map a lot of extra love and I hope you feel it was worth the time and effort. Either way, let me know what you think!

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St. Peter’s Basilica: Here’s where things are at right now.

There’s still a fair bit of floor left to color, but we’re getting there. I’ve been so engrossed in this that there have been a few times where I’ve started working, then looked up and, oh, hey, it’s five in the morning. Something about this really puts me in the zone.

Anyway, I’m gonna get back to it. Hope you like it so far!

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St. Peter’s Basilica: The floors are finished.

The lines for the basilica are finally done: the walls, the statues, the furnishings, the floors and all the rest. It was an enormous amount of work, but I think it’s been worthwhile. I might even say the map is looking fairly… is Catholicious a word? I hope so.

Anyway, it’s time to color this thing. It’ll probably take a minute, so I’ll post a few pictures along the way. Well, I’m gonna get started on that. Let me know what you think so far!

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Statues are done, on to the floors – St. Peter’s Basilica (Work-in-Progress)

This is the basilica with the statues and altars and most of the furnishings done. I tried to draw everything as accurately as I could and I’m pretty happy with it so far. There’s only one more thing to draw before I start coloring this, which is the floor. That may take a minute, since the floor here looks like this, but I think it’ll be worth the effort.

Well, this thing isn’t going to draw itself (none of the rest of it did, anyway), so I’d better get started. Let me know what you think so far!

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St. Peter’s Basilica (Work-in-Progress)

Here’s where I’m at with the basilica. The structure of the building is done and I’ve started working on the details. I’ve got the pipe organs and altars drawn into two of the chapels and the main altar is done as well, which you can see up close in the second picture. It has statues of four popes holding up a giant chair and looks like this in real life.

This place is pretty enormous and the first image is around 160×100 tiles or so. That, combined with the fact that I’m trying to give this place as much detail as possible, means that it’s going to take a minute. There are a LOT of statues in this place and I want to draw in all the major ones.

So, I hope you like how it’s coming so far and I hope you’ll find this thing worth the time spent on it. Either way, let me know what you think!

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Cladwater Lift Lock: The Ramparts

Here’s the upper level of Cladwater Lift Lock, as promised. And for patrons, I made a night version as well.

With that done, I’ll be getting back to the Vatican City megaproject, where I’ll be drawing St. Peter’s Basilica. Because the place is gargantuan and the floor is extremely elaborate, I’m not sure how long it’ll take, but I’ll post some work-in-progress pics along the way to show you how it’s going.

The basilica is an incredible work of art and I’m going to try to capture as much of that as I can in the map. But, ultimately, there’s only so much I can do. I’m going to show you two photos. Okay? This is Notre Dame in Paris. A world-famous masterpiece of architecture, no question. And this is St. Peter’s Basilica. I mean, like… that’s just bananas. My point is that I’ll do what I can, but I can only do so much in the face of that.

All right, I’m going in. Wish me luck.

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Cladwater Lift Lock

So the idea for this map is that it’s an outpost with a lock that lets riverboats cross a waterfall. If you’ve never seen one, boat elevators are a real thing. Here’s a Canadian one. And here’s Scotland’s super deluxe fancy one. I’m not sure if there are any that go over waterfalls, but it seems possible.

These things don’t go too far back in history, but Germany had one in 1789, so you should be able to get away with it in a fantasy setting. If you need an excuse, the phrase “dwarven engineering” has been letting DMs get away with putting sci-fi stuff in the middle ages for years. There’s a little pro tip for you.

As you may have noticed, this place does have stairs and there is an upper level to draw. It’s nothing fancy, just some ramparts, but I’ll draw that next. It should only take a day, two at most. After that, we’re back to Vatican City, where I’ll be getting started on St. Peter’s Basilica and its perfectly reasonable floor.

All right, I’ll be back with that soon! If you’ve got any questions or thoughts about the map, let me know.

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Vatican City – St. Peter’s Square

So the first part of the Vatican City megaproject is done. Well, kind of. One of the tricky things about drawing the Vatican is that there are parts of it I haven’t drawn yet in the background. In the top left is the Apostolic Palace and, at the bottom left, there’s a church called Santa Maria della Pieta. That stuff on the right is Italy. So I’ll have to remake this map with all the other stuff included once it’s done.

Also, St. Peter’s Square is huge. Like, this is actually one of the biggest maps I’ve ever made. That’s 199×160 tiles right there. You can fit multiple football fields inside it (either kind). The pope has a pretty big front yard.

The next part of the Vatican I’m going to draw will probably be St. Peter’s Basilica, the entrance to which is on the left. And I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little apprehensive about that. Because, you see, the floor of the basilica looks like this. Am I going to draw all that? Yes. Is it going to look really cool? Probably. Am I looking forward to it? No, I really am not. I’ll be honest with you: I’m a little scared. But it’s gotta be done and I’m going to do it regardless.

But first, I’ll be drawing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner: a dwarven fort built around a waterfall. There’ll be a lock for boats, a waterwheel or two, stuff like that. And after that, we’re back to the Vatican. Sound good? I hope so.

Anyway, if you’ve got any thoughts or questions, let me know!