I watched this with my 8 yr old son, and he went and got paper and a pen and started drawing a map. He used the twisted woods idea and drew big city markers and put the circles around them. Then we drew a map together. It was a lot of fun. I have never seen him so excited to draw a map before like that. Thanks for the great video. I took a lot of inspiration from it.
When you added the sun shining in the illustration for Sunwell Point, I thought it would be interesting to make that a thing for a couple of cities. Each would have an simple icon -- like a sun or a moon or a strangely angular spiral or whatever -- that would break out of a different part of the city's circular frame. Not every city needs one, for sure! Just a few cities that could use a bit more identity or that are linked together in some way. The frames need not be circles, or even all the same shape. Some cities could have dark backgrounds or solid borders instead of the double-lined kind; the border could be drawn to suggest a wall... there are lots of possibilities for slight variations that would still look like a unified style but make the reader ask, "why is this city different from the others"!
I cant believe it. Im sitting here trying to sketch exactly this type of landmark for my map of Amn and Im struggling hard. And here you come, saving my day again! Your Vids are great man! Keep up the good work!
I personally like the last map you showed the most. Probably because I like having a proper scale to the maps. Like Mountains beeing the biggest and Forests and Cities beeing the smalles. But yours do have something to them aswell which I like.
If you want some more ideas on how to do this sort of location marker, this is exactly what Baldur's Gate 1 did with its world map. Every area in the game, be it a wilderness zone, a small town, or one of the segments of the city of Baldur's Gate itself, has a marker like this. There's a lot of ideas for wilderness zones in that game - might be useful if you're looking to make a more instanced sort of map - several major points of interest, and brushing over the travel between those points.
Seeing the variations from the other artist was really helpful! The first D&D map I worked on had these token-like elements just without the circles, and it ended being a fun way to look back on our adventures
very cool Nate -thanks for more inspiration - i would definitely use a circle drawer as my shaking ovals would make it look like an earthquake or teleportation was happening...
oooh i had great fun trying this out !! i first gave it a go on an experiment where i used this kind of style to recreate central hyrule , now im hoping to do the whole map !! (ah projects, theres 14 sections im 4 down lol) so far though ive used this location method to highlight; the temple of time, hyrule castle, kakariko and hateno villages, fort hateno, the sacred springs, coliseum and lanayru promenade ! i also used a couple of highlighted circles for important areas otherwise like large mountains or points of interest ... it was also useful for covering over some points that might have been difficult to draw or convey what was there in detail so very recommend if youre going for a story-esque fantastical kind, almost like a sightseeing guide maybe ?
Cool technique! I've seen it done before but for some reason never occured to me to use it in my own work. I'll definitely include it, as i struggle with readability of some of my landmarks. Thanks!
Just had to say that I stumbled on your page the other day, never really thinking about drawing my own maps. I binge watched a bunch of your videos, and opened up my iPad and started drawing. Honestly, I surprised the heck out of myslef! Without your videos and great explanations (quick and easy) it would probably have looked terrible and I would have deleted it and moved on! So, thanks! Now you have me hooked on drawing maps - even just to draw them! I had a blast!
woah! that looks really cool! wish i was better at map making so that i could recreate the scroll of dragons at the beginning of the Wings Of Fire books!
Excellent technique Nate. I can't wait to try it out. I recommend putting a piece of masking tape on the back of your templates if you're going to ink with them. This lifts the template off of the paper, preventing you from smearing the line as you lift the template. It also helps you avoid any ink bleeding/wicking under the template that might occur if the template is in direct contact with the paper.
I have collected quite an assortment of templates over the years (35yrs) of art. Archetectual, technical, and shape templates are fantastic tools for any artist. I've been free hand mapping for awhile now and like Nate only recently perfected and locked in my design technique for both speed and ease, and consistency throughout all my maps. I have my own game system and host league play with many groups and need maps often. I also run alot of teach and train events for world/adventure building as well. I recommend Nates videos often. Great video as usual. Hope all is well. Michigan weather will be turning to snow soon enough so we will have a lot of "indoor activity" time for mapping. Great stuff Nate. I really like your mapping progress up to this point. Love the final product.
the one i always love too is the crest of the family or whatever that lives/rules there, or the portrait of the leader of that location. kings, mayors, lords, noblemen and women etc
The big issue I have when drawing my maps is I tend to mess up the scaling. And I figured out why watching this video. I draw my mountains too big and it makes the rest of the landmass look much smaller and gives me less space to work with. I don't know why it suddenly just clicked for me. So thanks my guy. Not only did you give me a cool new way to do my cities, but you also solved a problem I've been having for a while now. My next map is gonna be so much better now.
That's a very nice style. I will put on the list of things I need to try out. Thanks for sharing! I finally joined the Discord. Might share the map I made while following your beginner's tutorial. I am still very impressed by how it turned out.
Nate! Wow - congratulations on your channel's awesome success! I took a few years off from mine to go to grad school and now I'm wondering if that was a good move - haha! All kidding aside, congrats and this map video is awesome!
Consider big enemies. Legendary enemies take residence in legendary lairs and these ought to be considered, lots of sources on RU-vid for inspiration on where monsters like to call home
I have noticed on really old maps that include the sea or an ocean, there are very often monsters like sea serpents, ship wrecks, mighty kraken or even treasure chests etc. Where there are vast mountain ranges or unknown lands, monsters are indicated by the use of three headed ogres, dragons, phoenix, and flying lizards. Can you do an episode where you explore these elements, what causes them to be there and what other creatures could be lurking and how they should be drawn ?
@@dindapriska especially if the building in question is obscured from general view by other buildings, like if your city map has a 3d perspective to it
I really like the idea of using such markers for natural locations as well. And your mention of underground locations got me thinking - how about an underwater cave? Or maybe a sunken ship on the oceans floor? I think that would be really cool as well :)
Have you ever tried a pantograph for making different scales of a map you had already made? I stumbled upon a video on them for general art and am thinking of getting one as I suck at reproducing coastlines for when I want multiple maps at differing scales.
When I name my map locations, I usually take names of finnish lakes, rivers, cities and towns. Then I just literally translate them in english. It got me some interesting names.
Was wondering if you could do a series on making fictional characters into D&D characters. I'm looking to do a campaign with my daughters and making disney princesses as characters. So doing a stat block where Elsa is a powerful ice wizard and pocahontas is like a druid and some other princess is a bard. I think it would be cool to see the process on filling out a character sheet based off a real/fictional character.
A good name for your astounding map may be Iltharia or Elkimar. I think they may sound kind of Elvish, but maybe they are the ones that named this land. I don’t know the various magical, religious and etc practices of your world, so maybe elves don’t exist. If that is the case then Ormalgen may be a good name, or Terthalys.
Where can I go to submit my map to you? I think you'll love it and I would love some feedback wheather it's on a new video like ones previous or just personal I don't care. It's the map of my world in my book I'm publishing so any info or thoughts could really help.
This new mapping technique is pretty neat. Are your links to the map drawing items affiliate codes? The HTML looks like it and I really dislike when people aren't honest when they get a kickback for making sales.
