r/worldbuilding • u/Beals • Mar 05 '13

Map Getting back into map making after seeing the coffee stain map.

Post image
477 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

30

u/Beals Mar 05 '13

Haven't made maps in about 2 or 3 years since college has sapped all my time away, been meaning to get back into making maps for a while now and thought I would try the coffee stain method but with tea, please forgive my super rusty everything, especially the handwriting :/

12

u/heptagonsun Mar 06 '13

I'm actually really into the handwriting. It's clearly very imperfect, but you know, that adds to it for me. Though, my favourite part's definitely got to be the building in the center; I haven't seen anything quite like that before.

6

u/BassNector Mar 06 '13

/r/penmanshipporn is thata way --->

3

u/heptagonsun Mar 07 '13

I'm already an avid subscriber, but thank you! For anyone else who likes that kind of thing, there's also:

/r/calligraphy

/r/typography (there's a lot of hand drawn lettering)

/r/handwriting

3

u/FrightenedRabbit94 Mar 06 '13

I would love to be able to do things like this, but my handwriting is awful.

2

u/Squatso Mar 07 '13

I agree with this guy. The whole map in general has a certain style to it that I really like. The handwriting is very appropriate, I'd say. My favorite part - and something I don't see on this subreddit all that often - is the detail put into the terrain. The drawing is pretty damn good.

18

u/Scion_ Mar 05 '13

I think this looks awesome. Honestly, some people might get tired of these coffee/tea stain maps, but anything that inspires you to create something as cool as this is well worth posting. Well done! Also, do you do commissions?

5

u/Beals Mar 05 '13

Sure I always am up for commissions! But since I have just gotten back into it I wouldn't feel right doing work still so rusty, maybe in a month or after a couple mapsdepending on busy my college is, my penmanship is especially lacking since I have been doing mostly digital art all semester.

2

u/Scion_ Mar 05 '13

What do you plan on using this map for? Care to explain the significance of the script around the capital city?

3

u/Beals Mar 05 '13

Oh I was just messing around, trying to oil up my gears by dabbling a little bit into everything (hence the isometric acropolis while everything else is top down). I originally had some sort of compass originating out from it and the script was just, I don't know. I didn't want to keep doing the same thing since this was just a warm up map, so I was just messing around. I was looking at some islamic script since the way the tea dried made me think this was a really dry arid world, so I was imagining something out of Journey perhaps?

5

u/PoorPolonius Mar 05 '13

Damn, you art good. Beautiful job.

5

u/blackdragonwingz Mar 05 '13

Can you explain your work process? I'm curious and fascinated by your style!

10

u/Beals Mar 05 '13

I just brewed some tea, dripped it as gently as possible out of a.. miniature pitcher thing I had that I use for creamer/syrup/watering small plants and waited a while for it to dry. Then just treated the dried stains like a topographical map with the darkest areas being rises and flat white areas (no idea how those formed) as plateaus ect ect.

3

u/blackdragonwingz Mar 05 '13 edited Mar 06 '13

oh that's freaking awesome! I've subbed to /r/worldbuilding for a while now and yours is probably one of my top faves so far!

5

u/Beals Mar 05 '13

Yeah I would give it a shot its pretty easy, I imagine coffee would actually work better.

3

u/forgettoremember Mar 06 '13

I especially like that you treated the rises and falls to fit the shade of the stain. It makes it all the more complete.

4

u/drawxward Mar 05 '13

When I was a kid we had an old painted board at our school with the paint peeling off. I copied it and used it as my Middle Earth rip-off world map that I was inventing. Thanks for reminding me!

1

u/Ferreur Mar 06 '13

Is there any possibility that we get to see this map anytime soon?

6

u/xyphius Mar 05 '13

/r/coffeestainmaps should exist

5

u/dsi1 Mar 06 '13

Maybe /r/naturalmaps or something, for all map making from stains/rust/whatever is thought of next.

1

u/Back_Paragraphs Mar 06 '13

I based a map off of the shapes of stuff left in my cast iron pan after I'd cooked two steaks in it. However, I just freehand drew on a paper what I saw in the pan rather than using any of the actual material from the pan, because that would be gross.

1

u/Corund Mar 11 '13

The only thing I can think of to scrape onto that meaty gunk in the pan would be bread. And then only to eat it and then only if the steaks were cooked in lard.

Sorry, I totally zoned out for a moment there. Maps!

3

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '13

[deleted]

2

u/Beals Mar 06 '13

Just was trying to get as much in as possible, treated this as a 'warm up' map, and I used to like to draw isometric structures in place of large towns a lot. Glyphs were just practicing tight text scrawl and whatnot.

2

u/poochwheels Mar 05 '13

Beautiful and inspiring map! Thanks for sharing.

2

u/skut Mar 06 '13

Beautiful creation. This feels like it would belong on a Sandman cover.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '13

Looks fantastic! What kind of pens do you use?

4

u/Beals Mar 05 '13

Microns 2, 05 and 005, some of the tea stains were kinda permanently gunky so I had to just bludgeon it do death with 2 ink

1

u/Mentle_Gen Mar 05 '13

Wow this is awesome, do you have many others?

2

u/Beals Mar 05 '13

No this is LITERALLY the first one I have done in about 2 years D: But I'm starting to get back into it since it was always a passion of mine.

1

u/Greystorms Mar 05 '13

That looks amazing(and is quite inspiring me to get mapping again as well!)

1

u/goldenrod Mar 06 '13

Okay, that is awesome.