Renno Has sent me another map to with a lot more information to accompany the previous map. He also offers some great advice. It's probably best if I post it in his own words...
“I've added a scan with the names of the suburbs and (I always design it after drawing the map) the local bus routes. Make sure you don't say the names in English - the English pronunciation sounds very weird, everything in this map is Dutch.
It's a small town called Sliste, which is a small republic's capital city (like Slovenia, Cyprus etc.). It has 100.000 inhabitants, I guess.
It has two railways stations, which is of course not that handy, but I always draw maps with some history (in the early years every company had its own railway station).
Both are linked with each other by a suburb connecting the eastern station, the main station and the airport. (The airport had had two runways, but for terminal expansion, the abandoned the shortest one and built there terminal D). A second suburb links the parking areas with the terminal.
Something about the suburbs:
-the downtown is almost car free, except for some bus lanes.
-in the southeastern of it there's a 'island' in the traffic: a car free zone surrounded by a main road... (Citadel)
-the city has a lot of big buildings, so does every capital has, like ministries, offices...
-Slisteroever is a neighbourhood with bigger houses
-Fierloper, Sylte, Sterre, Vlierloo, Te Essen and Ruitenberg are new suburbs (literally translated: Proud lane, Sylte, Elder(berry) forest, At Essen and Rhombus hill).
-Besides Rivvel, where the villas are on a hill, is situated the apartment-block neighbourhood 'Platteland' (country side, the Dutch word means literally 'flat land') referring to the hill...
Platteland has only apartments block, built after WWII when they needed new houses quickly.
-In the centre, in a river's swing, is a castle where the governance is.
The city has something of a Dutch town, with almost no hills - only two, with between a river (...).
How I make a map like this:
-Take a empty piece of paper and start drawing some blocks and figures
-Don't have any plan, just keep just the approximate shape of the city in mind:
-So you'll never know how your town will look like before it's finished!
-be patient: if you want to hurry everything - STOP! Perhaps you'll find some inspiration when you leave your map for a day.”
This map was sent to me by Renno Hokwerda, a visitor to the site, who is 17.
There is a large amount of detail in this map and the image he sent me is a whopping 4750 × 1600 pixels!
I’m hoping to see more of Renno’s work, he’s certainly got patience!
This map is the Land of Eyeis that I created for an author who visited my site called Justin Johns. He asked me to draw a full version for his book, first providing me with a rough outline and a description of the main features and places. This method is actually quite tricky, as it is easy to make a mistake and hard to rectify it without re-drawing the whole thing...something I had to do a couple of times!
This map is a bit of a first for me because I had to modify it on the computer to get the required look, something I would not normally do. I have also drawn some other maps for Justin. He has since asked me to draw a map of my own for him to work from to help with a serious case of writer's block, I much prefer that method of working!
This map is of The Isle of Caellend, and was drawn by Psyekl, who is a visitor to this site. The detail is incredible, he takes around 200 hours to complete each map. He's far more patient than me! Quite a large file this.
This city plan is also drawn by Psyekl. He was working on a website of his own, when he sent me this, so if he gets it up and running I'll link to it.
In the meantime, if you like his work then tell him:
This is the land of the Reborn Faith, an RPG adventure world created by Nate, a visitor to the site. He contacted me and asked me to design him a map for his world and this is what I came up with. I don't think he ever added it to the site, but it was fun to do anyway. I tried to incorporate names and places that I found on the site into the map, as well as adding my own places. It made a change to draw a map for an actual purpose and I really enjoyed doing it!
You can find his site at: rebornfaith.tripod.com/
The Dawn Isles. Also an early use of colour. There is no story to go with this one, but the title has two meanings as my girlfriends name is also "Dawn"! Actually, the use of colour works slightly better here than on some of the more brightly coloured maps that came later.
This picture I drew for an older version of this website, to use as background artwork. I think using this much colour is a bit too much in your face, it seemed a shame to leave it out though...
