This is an example of a common difficulty in historical fantasy game maps. There is a constant battle between accuracy and artistic authenticity. On the one hand, the [...]]]> With the advent of the upcoming movie, I thought I’d showcase a map I made for Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s RPG: The Savage World of Solomon Kane.

This is an example of a common difficulty in historical fantasy game maps. There is a constant battle between accuracy and artistic authenticity. On the one hand, the customer wants a map that will look as much as possible like a map of teh time. They want a product which the player or gamemaster can hold and get that visceral feel of connection with the setting.

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In this case, Solomon Kane lived in the 16th century. The world was far from fully mapped. At the same time, much of the action is in the discovery and exploration of far-off lands, or strange hidden lands within places once mysterious and unknown, such as Deepest Africa. You will note that Australia is hinted at on this map, though it was not discovered by Europeans until the following centruy.

This is a nod to Accuracy and Utility. Though we want a map that looks like something Kane himself might have held, the players and gamemaster want something that they can use to accurately gauge distances, or spacial relationships between land-masses. They want the arcane and the familiar in one product. In general, these aims are incompatible, and the problem gets worse as you “zoom in” to larger scale maps. In a future post, I will show a portion of a map of the Eastern seaboard of North America that also illustrates this point.

The concession was arrived at in this map, that landmasses that had been discovered would be shown faithfully, even if they were not already fully mapped. The farthest north, the farthest south, and places like Australia would be faded and ghostly.

The rendering of the map was done as follows. I started with an outline map of the world, used with the permission of the Cartographic Research Laboratory of the University of Alabama. I converted this to Photoshop format and laid down some base colors, using the climate zones of the real world as a guide. It doesn’t look like much at this stage. The detail comes next.

In step three, I lay down the major surface textures of the world. At this scale, this is primarily mountains, hills and vegetation. These are each done on separate layers in the Photoshop document. By putting them on different layers, I can quickly and easily make changes, should I make a mistake. I don’t have to worry about destroying my forest work with a misplaced mountain range, for example. (For those unfamiliar with layers in an illustration program, imagine them as layers of clear paper. Each piece of paper is layered one over the other and each layer can contain different artwork. The final piece for this project had 13 layers, not including the type.)

You will also note that the surface detail I have painted does not look particularly naturalistic. The forms do not flow into each other convincingly. Once I have finished the rendering of the map, none of this artificiality will be visible. Especially since the printed product was destined for a standard 8.5″ x 11″ page. At this scale, minor details become obscured. The impression is the important thing. (You may remember that lesson from my last featured map.)

Now that the details are in, it’s time to make it all look pretty. I created a virtual piece of parchment (4 layers: for dirt, texture, color, and edge effects) and composited the map with the parchment, using Photoshop’s transparency tools to make the image look as if it was painted on the parchment. It’s all still editable. All of the preceding images were taken from the finished work, just by isolating the layers. Here is what it looks like when assembled.

The final step is to put in all the type. (This image shows a detail area, with type in place and a close up of the parchment texture.) Photoshop is a great program, but it really isn’t designed to handle a lot of individual pieces of type. It wants to put each label on a separate layer. Thats’ really unmanageable and a nightmare to edit. So a link to the graphic is placed in a different program altogether: Adobe Illustrator. The Illustration workhorse has so many features that it really deserves a post of it’s own. Suffice it is an essential compliment to Photoshop. Here all of the labels are affixed to the map, the gridlines are superimposed, and that critical “KAC” signature is placed at the bottom.

A final advantage of using layers. This map had two final copies: one usable by the players, and one usable by the Gamemaster, who needs to know the location of mythical places Kane visited, of which the characters would be unaware. By placing the Gamemaster’s labels on a separate layer, I could generate a player copy and a GM copy with little trouble. This savings is of course passed on to the customer, and the second map was practically a freebie. (It might even have been thrown in gratis; it’s been a while since I did this.)

Once the customer approves, a final, printable copy with no layers is generated. (This is like I took all those pieces of transparent paper and fused them all into one image.) Why don’t I give the layered copy to the customer? Well, sometimes I do on request. But there is so much that can go wrong with a layered image. What if the printer doesn’t have the right font, for instance? Or what if the customer makes an experiment with the layers and winds up producing something unprintable? I use a lot of little tricks to make things work right, and they are not all immediately obvious. It’s also just a lot smaller and easier to transport and print.

Finally, once again, the finished image.

This map was created for Aberrant Games, for their Rezolution line. It was an emergency job, as the contracted artist had let them down in some manner. They needed a city sector map for a post apocalyptic, cyberpunk style world. I was given an existing [...]]]>

Rezolution City Map - Click for full image.

This map was created for Aberrant Games, for their Rezolution line. It was an emergency job, as the contracted artist had let them down in some manner. They needed a city sector map for a post apocalyptic, cyberpunk style world. I was given an existing piece and asked to copy the style. I don’t have re-posting rights for the sample, but I am allowed to feature the resulting map I created.

This is an example of a collaboration of Illustrator and Photoshop elements. 90% of the detail is provided by Illustrator. Most of this detail is implied. The aim was to create something that looked like a satellite image. To this end, there is no perspective to speak of, just a straight top-down view.

The buildings are actually simple shapes, with hairline outlines. The shapes all have a tiny drop shadow effect applied to them to give them the illusion of sitting on a surface. Illustrator allows you to apply a Style to an object, much like you would define and apply a style to text in a word processor. So I was started with objects based on this style. If they looked less than convincing, I could redefine the style and all the buildings would update to match. This made edits very quick and uniform. I always try to plan a project for efficiency. (You might notice a lot of repeated shapes.)

The resulting image however did not look convincing. It needed the sort of detail that makes a satellite image look real. As I sated earlier, this was a rush project, so I couldn’t really take the time to add the necessary fiddly bits to lend authenticity. Nowadays, I have several techniques using defined image patterns, but I hadn’t hit on that idea yet. Besides, part of the assignment specs required that some of the buildings be distinct and well-defined. Too much detail would tend to get them lost and make their unclear. To that end I decided to keep the buildings fairly smooth, and make the background chaotic and detailed instead.

I took some real satellite images from various sources and mixed and matched. There are real-world cities, as well as some badlands topology. I reduced them to a grayscale of similar value to the building pieces and used that as a backdrop for the whole project.

Finally, the project required the whole illustration to look like a computer display. I created a frame with a 3-D effect and devised a lettering style. Once again, in the interests of efficiency, the labels are styles. All I had to do was type the name and the round-cornered rectangular background creates itself. If I didn’t like the results (and I didn’t, for the first several attempts), I redefined the style and all the labels updated.

I liked the finished piece. It gives the illusion of exquisite thoroughness with very little actual technical detail.

This map is copyright Aberrant Games. Reproduced with permission.

For more maps and commissioned art, go to www.KACurtis.com

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