Fantasy maps created using Xara Xtreme

[Gamerprinter]

I just found out this monring, In the Company of Kappa, my first product release under Rite Publishing for my Kaidan setting, has been listed as #3 on RPG Countdown Top 10 List of RPG products sold between 2/27 and 3/12 2011.

The cover design for that product is a couple pages back in this thread. I hope I have as much luck with the rest of my Kaidan products, but at least this one is getting some good exposure and sales! Yippee!

Plus I get a free full page ad, for my Mapping Products in two industry magazines next month.

Michael

[amoore]

Congratulatons, Michael.

[Scotty]

Well done!!...Hope your wishes come true..
Jim

[Gamerprinter]

I know, I know, I've been working on a Bardic Lich's hall with a dead orchestra. As a first time, I'm not going to complete that map. After having to get to work on some other projects, when I got back to that map, I lost all my inspiration. Having slept on it, I decided to make a dungeon inspired by my Kaidan game setting. I really do prefer the Japanese stuff for the time being.

The Emperor's Playground - the Emperor of Kaidan is a boy emperor named Antoku. He happens to be a Goryo: a yurei ghost of a noble, trapped in the mind and body of a five year old child. On his 500th birthday, his grandfather, the Shogun of Kaidan commissioned the construction of a dungeon beneath the imperial palace, as a playground for the undead boy emperor featuring all the things Antoku loves to do and visit.

Guests are invited to an audience with the august Emperor, but when they arrive, they are asked to spend the night in the Imperial Guest House, as the emperor had other duties to attend. Once all the guests are asleep, they are instantly teleported to a duplicate guest house located at the start of the dungeon complex.

The guests must negotiate this dangerous dungeon facing all sorts of Kaidan horrors. If they survive the ordeal they are granted their audience with the emperor who showers them with gifts. Of course they have to survive in order to receive them.

Attached is a thumbnail at the site's limit of 800 pixels wide, however, because this map was created at 18" x 24", the clarity is a bit off at this reduced size, so I've attached a link to the full map.

Note this map is not complete, as I am placing inset illustrations of the various encounters in each chamber as description notation to start each entry. I still need to create 7 more illustrations, but should finish in a day or two. This map seen here was all created just today. I will post the final when it is complete.

Enjoy!

Michael

Link to larger version of the work-in-progress map contest entry:
The Emperor's Playground

[Gamerprinter]

Completed!



Link to the entry PDF (letter size, 300 ppi PDF):
Emperor's Playground map PDF

Michael

[Gamerprinter]

For the next supplement for Kaidan, I am developing a book of 30 magic items called Ancestral Relics. My co-publisher, Steve Russell tries to keep the design costs down by minimizing the need for freelance work. He'd prefer a collection of stock art detailing Japanese objects. I'm afraid that many of the item ideas I have just won't have a good representation from stock art.

Here is my concept cover design and illustration for such a book...

[Gamerprinter]

Here's 8 objects needed for my Ancestral Relics book...

Folding fan, flute, saddle, katana, kusarigama (kama chain weapon), noh theater mask, a biwa mandolin and the piece from the cover, a kabuto war helmet.

Michael

[Big Frank]

Once again excellent illustrations, but they look like pencil drawings coloured afterwards in Xara, right?

[Gamerprinter]

Pen, not pencil, but yes, scanned and colored in Xara, nothing more. I used photos for reference, except for the biwa mandolin, I created in 3D set the angle and used a reference for hand-drawing.

I will have another map to post soon, and perhaps more illustrations to follow.

Not that I ever plan to get into stock illustrations, I can easily see creating 12 more illustrations and selling this as a Japanese object stock art set for $20 if I really wanted to. I might give it some thought after I've decided which one's I'm using, create replacements and give that market a try.

Michael

[Gamerprinter]

As if I don't already have too many irons in the fire, I've begun another project, but this one just me as designer, illustrator, cartographer, layout artist and publisher. I've decided to begin a series of hand-drawn maps fitting structures of a typical European based town of the late medieval or early renaissance period. My first set of maps are tavern/inns of Chelbonay. (Chelbonay is the ficticious town I am creating.)

My first map set will feature four tavern/inn structures (all hand-drawn, scanned and finished Xara Xtreme) with an accompanying set of map objects: tables, ovens, human patrons, food, fires for fireplaces, etc. Since the four mapped taverns differ only in scale and quality (tavern quality, not drawing quality) they all can share the same map objects.

My plan is to create a tavern/inn map set, temple/church map set, barracks/gatehouse/jail house map set, library/mage's shop/wizard's laboratory set, a thieves guild set, market squares, mayors small keep, craft houses set, etc. While I do not plan to build interior maps of every building in this ficticious community, I do plan to design all the more significant, or more often used in games structures - perhaps 25 buildings in all. Finally I will create a fully encompassing town map that shows where all these structures exist within the town map.

Although I've already created a second floor to the inn (not posted), I also need to design the attached stables and cart barn, after which I will create all necessary map objects, followed by the three lesser tavern/inns of the set.

Each map set, as in Tavern/Inns of Chelbonay will be featured as its own stand-alone product, however it will be part of a series of map pack sets all describing this fictional site of Chelbonay.

So the first map below is the Blue Ox Inn...

Link to full scale image: Blue Ox Inn



GP