While I'm still not 100% sure what my next mapmaking steps are going to be, I know that I'm going to draw smaller maps. Whether they will be campaign proposal specific ones, or simply smaller, more detailed regional maps is TBD. I'm sure I'll eventually do both to the degree to which they don't overlap anyway, but the question is which one will I do next? Either way, I have a few notes, both about some changes to the setting and some changes to my map drawing styles.
First off; a change to a major feature. The Boneyard is a large wilderness that offers some separation between the Baal Hamazi region to the northwest, the edge of Kurushat at the very north, the Hill Country to the east (in it's initial form, it was part of the Hill Country, but still remained a barrier of sorts) and Timischburg in the south. It's almost like a hub to which all of the other constituent regions are connected, but because it was a vast desert meant to remind you of the American southwest, but maybe the least friendly parts of it: dry, hot, rugged, dangerous to cross, full of bandits and savage tribes, and with wildlife that would have been common at the end of the Ice Age (think of the La Brea Tar Pits museum.)
Pretty bleak; and honestly, that was the point. I'm actually leaning towards making it less bleak yet more rough. Think of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Or Bryce Canyon. Or Sedona. It's desert, but not nearly as dry and sandy and "cactusy." Rather, you have low, scrubby forests over rough hills, canyons, cliffs and rocks. The forests are dry, but they're not as dry; pinyon pines and Utah junipers is what makes up this biome. I doubt I'll refer specifically to Utah junipers, because that makes it sound less like a fantasy world to refer to a real-life location, but the California juniper, Sierra juniper and western juniper are also part of the classic pinyon-juniper woodland biome.
I'll replace the dryness and emptiness as a barrier with actual barriers; rough country that's difficult to pass. (Dryness is still an issue, but not as much of one.) This allows me to feel a little bitter about stuffing the Boneyard with gangs of bandits and tribes of savages and more wildlife; because the biome is more productive than that of the original incarnation up above.
Maybe in the long run that doesn't make as much of a difference as all that. I'm not quite sure how to map that; I'm not interested in drawing a gigantic forest with buttes and mesas and cliffs in it, but I'll figure that out before I get too far into this. Most people see forest on a fantasy map and they're not thinking about this kind of open forest, with short, shrubby trees that are only 5-10 ft. tall, and widely enough spaced that you have good views most of the time; they think of thick forest under a leafy canopy. Probably by putting in some scattered bushes and shrubs in the area, along with the buttes and spires of red-rock sandstone. It's also still notable for the large number of bleaching bones laying on, or partly exposed to the ground. Most of these are leftovers of battles fought by vast armies of the jann and kemlings and their human (and other) auxiliary troops when Baal Hamazi was sweeping away the last remnants of the older Kurushat Empire, back when it still stretched as far south as the Boneyard.
Speaking of which, I'm revisiting in my mind some of my techniques used on my last big map. While I'm happy with it still, it is important to keep in mind that I hadn't used the Pixma pens before, and having the large number of tip thicknesses made me maybe a little too over-eager to use them all. My forests in particular are looking, I think, a little too belabored compared to forests that I've done in the past, such as on my Mk. IV version of the setting on posterboard (check out the MAPMAKING tag to see some quick snapshots of that on an older post. I think I may stick with a hatched shading on my mountains too, rather than hard black shading, like I've always used in the past. Although I do note that if I draw the maps and then switch to the brush pen, I can probably get that darker look easier, quicker and maybe even prettier than I've done in the past. One more think to mess around with on some scratch paper before I start, I guess.
I like my coastline approach too, but it sometimes looks a little belabored too; maybe the wavy rippled effect would look better. I like having a few different styles here too as I do this. It may take quite a while before I settle on what my favorite styles really are, especially as I'm experimenting with new styles that would potentially replace what I've been doing for decades.
I have picked up some art pencils. They're soft pencils, which probably isn't exactly what I should have picked up, but they also are not all "black" in color, so I can use three shades of gray, including one that's quite light, for my drafting. That's another thing that I was unhappy with; my regular No. 2 mechanical didn't erase quite as well as I'd have liked because the lines were too dark and hard-pressed into the paper.
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