It’s always a little daunting to take on a brand new style of map. When Steve Russell asked for an map inspired by the Orient for Heroes of the Jade Oath I took it on with some trepidation. After a ton of experimenting with textures, brushes and line-styles I came up with a version I was happy with, and this is the result!
To give you an idea of how a map like this evolves, here’s an intermediate stage. At this point I was happy with the style of the mountains, but I still had a long way to go with the colour palette and overall styling:
However, this provided a good overall view of the map, and could be signed off before the styling was finished up. To see more of the world, check out the Heroes of the Jade Oath book in pdf and print, or the poster map on Cafepress!
Gorgeous. I especially like the faint perpendicular lines from the cost line. Are they purely aesthetic?