Fantasy maps created using Xara Xtreme

[Gamerprinter]

Been working on Paleolithic and Pleostocene maps lately, however aside from artifacts and dwelling places, I needed something more lively to include, so here's my mammoth top-down map object. This of course is simply beveled shapes using a fur texture from CGTextures.com - a pretty simple Xara operation to create. I will probably be doing the same thing for other Pleostocene mammals: wooly rhino, Irish elk, aurochs bovine, primitive horses, giant sloth, smilodon, saber-tooth cat, hyaenodon, dire wolf and other mega-fauna. Enjoy!

[Gamerprinter]

Anybody need a small castle town map! All created in Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9 (a vector drawing application), including all map objects, except the church and tavern which are 3D objects. Total time to create 6.5 hours, over 3 days.

[Boy]

Impressive.

[Gamerprinter]

Thanks, Boy!

I decided to create a map that emulates a 17th century style with mostly hand-drawn elements (forest and swamp foilage, village, town, fort symbols, hills, and mountains, as well as the cartouche) and vector created elements inspired by the British colonies in America, but completely ficticious. There are nods to Pre-Roman British, Roman British, early Irish-Scot history, and Shakespeare throughout the place names. This are the American colonies that never were. Enjoy!

Michael



Visit my G+ community to see larger versions of all these maps and objects.

[Boy]

Looks wonderful and with that creation, you have become a Royal Cartographer. Not bad!

The map looks old but are the fonts you use also that old?

[Gamerprinter]

The map looks old but are the fonts you use also that old?

Not exactly, but looking at a late 16th century map, the colony names were very similar. The serifs might have been a bit more extended in the reference, but really wasn't too far off. I often use Celtic and more genre specific fonts for labeling, but my real world example had surprisingly modern looking fonts.

I've got a copy of a page from Genesis (about the ark) from a scan of an actual page from a King James Bible (2nd printing 1692) - a customer brought it in for me to make a color print for a presentation, while the real thing got put in a safe. I've a mounted print of it myself, having actually handled a 400 year old document. Anyway, the fonts in that were marriage style for the main text, but more readable serif fonts in the footnotes. However, interestingly all "U"s and "V"s were swapped in the Latin fashion. However, I think a bible presentation is intentionally more ornate than a territorial map.

So I feel comfortable with my font choices.

[Boy]

Thank you for explaining. I was just wondering as I have no real knowledge of the history of fonts.

[Gamerprinter]

The large labels are Baskerville Old Face and the smaller fonts are Goudy Old Style - so both fonts say "Old" as part the name, so it helps the comfort level of appropriateness.

[Gamerprinter]

Just created a hand-drawn map yesterday of a mountain stream and waterfall, then scanned and imported to XDP9, given fractal cloud color mixes, mostly rounded bevels, drop shadows and edge feathering. The water of course is stacked layers of blue with 50% transparency, also used a photo image of water to create the refracted light on the bottom of the stream effect. Enjoy!

[Gamerprinter]

Working on a set of photorealistic map symbols that you'd find in a coral reef: (so far) 17 varieties of coral, 6 varieties of sea plants, 2 versions of clam, octopus, squid, blue crab, tiger shark, sting ray, dolphin and a humpback whale... about a dozen fish to go or so.