Map of Northern Magnamund

[outspaced]

Hi all

For some time I've been working on a map of Northern Magnamund, and I think that just possibly, maybe, sort of, kinda, it's finally passed the Alpha stage and has just entered the verdant grasslands of Beta. A really early Beta.

I thought that I'd make a link to it in case anyone was interested. It's a bit big. Well, actually, it's very big. The PNG file is 1.3Mb, but it unpacks to a Bitmap of about 41.5mb.

homepage.ntlworld.com/ravensblade/N_Magnamund_WIP.PNG

For those of you using a browser that scales the picture to fit your window as it downloads, I'd suggest allowing it to remain shrunk until it's finished, then click it to see the full, unexpurgated, uncensored, full-size version. Phwoar! Ain't she a beauty!

I stress this is a very early Beta version. Ultimately, I hope to produce a Volcano icon (the one I knocked up looked awful ), a palm-tree icon for Jungles and oases (the one I knocked up looks awful ), redraw the coastlines for the islands in the pack-ice, fix the inaccuracy with the bottom-right section of Southern Magnamund coastline where it borders the Gulf of Tentarium, add labels, add towns / cities / roads. This is a very long-term project. Maybe it'll get done . . . one day . . .

[Relenoir]

Wow, that's pretty awesome. I can't wait to see once it has all of the cities and everything else on there. Very impressed, would make a great game tool, like those big fold-open maps that came with the old AD&D box sets. Very nice job!

[jimy]

very nice ! looks like you spent a lot of effort into getting the detail right. can't wait for it to be finished

[The Wytch-King]

Impressive indeed! Maybe I should go for a little conquest, somehow I get in the mood for that. (After all, "travel is a great way to expand the horizons and meet new people," as Genghis Khan used to say. )

How do you create that map? Do you have a special program you're using? Campaign Cartographer, Wally 2.0 or something like that? (The .png suffix doesn't tell me anything ...)


The Wytch-King, who loves maps, even though that slogan's not tattoed on his arm ...

[outspaced]

The said:

Impressive indeed! Maybe I should go for a little conquest, somehow I get in the mood for that. (After all, "travel is a great way to expand the horizons and meet new people," as Genghis Khan used to say. )

Thanks! I'm still not happy with it, and perusing Gray Chalk's map from Flight from the Dark I can see a number of discrepancies--so much so that I've redrawn part of the coastline this evening. The curse of semi-perfectionism. :-\

Isn't Khan's quote actually: '. . . beat new people'?

How do you create that map? Do you have a special program you're using? Campaign Cartographer, Wally 2.0 or something like that? (The .png suffix doesn't tell me anything ...)

You're gonna kick yourself for opening this can of worms . . .

About 12 years ago, as a sprightly youth of 13, I decided in my infinite wisdom that I wanted a big map of Magnamund. With some help from my redoubtable father, I set up a system as follows: A sheet of A1 paper drawn with gridline system of 4cm squares; a sheet of clear plastic with a gridline system of 1cm squares; and a sheet of clear plastic with a gridline system of 2.5cm squares.

The 1cm sheet was for the map in The Prisoners of Time. The 2.5cm sheet was for the map of Northern Magnamund in The Magnamund Companion. This made the two maps match and gave two sources to enlarge onto the A1 paper. Clever stuff. I also used the same method to create a map of Southern Magnamund, but that was on a different scale to fit on a sheet of A1.

Once the map was drawn, coloured, and labels re-inked, I stood back and looked at my work. And yea, it was good.

When I got a scanner a few years ago, I wanted to make a digital copy of my maps, but I didn't have enough experience or knowledge of scanning and graphics packages to know how to. After some experience scanning in the illustrations from Lone Wolf #s 1-8, and some outside help from a colleague, I scanned in the map (8 separate images, then melded them together in PaintShop Pro) and it looked . . . horrible. A mess. So I had to edit the image to block the colours (and that took a long time, I can tell you) and remove all the messy original colours.

All the icons (hills, trees, etc.) were hand-drawn by me (and believe me, I'm no artist )and hand placed by me using . . . the state of the art graphics package . . . M$ Paint. No, seriously. The mountain icon was created from the colours of the blank paper from the scan, which came out rather grey. They too were placed using M$ Paint. Every single last solitary one of them.

Right now I'm working on icons for towns and cities. A WIP version of the Lastlands is here: homepage.ntlworld.com/ravensblade/Lastlands.png

No labels, no roads, but a view of things to come. Note the updated Kirlundin Isles and a better Rymerift. It's only 66K, so much smaller than the one above. Are the icons OK? Any input and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. TIA.

[The Wytch-King]

outspaced said:

Isn't Khan's quote actually: '. . . beat new people'?

Depends on his mood.

outspaced said:

You're gonna kick yourself for opening this can of worms . . . [...] Every single last solitary one of them.

*Eep!* Now that's a story! I'll have to commend you on your diligent efforts, you know ... Yes, I really can say I'm impressed. (But still don't feel any urge to kick myself - though others might be tempted to take that upon themselves ... )

For more comments I'll have to examine the maps in deeper details - i.e., need more time. There's an Outspaced on the other phone as well, you know ...


The Wytch-King