CARTOGRAPHY is good for breakfast

:) I said before about my adiction to dungeons and dragons and i have been an active player for the last 20 years, i actually developed a world in the neverwinter nights platform called mirent tusk, its a huge place and well i created lots of stuff the, now im back to pen and paper and after a while i decided to create my own story and well ill try to play it with my friends, but here is the deal im making everything from scratch im just using the rules of the dungeons and dragons game and all other is form my self now im finished with the stroy and im starting with the art for it, im ageing some paper for draw my maps (handmade) is quite easy to make them in photoshop but this time im trying to get away from the computer for get the feeling of old almost destroyed maps from an adventurer (something like simbad) i mean this adventure im working with is based in the findings of an old captain that sailed all Fareun looking for the secret of the seven keys, (thats all im going to say about my story for now) and im making maps custom ones of places i create and wrote about them you will be finding here more cartography stuff from now on and till i finish this. its actually quite complicated to draw maps and more if you want to give it the feeling of real old, im working a lot with inks and water colors and well i started with the paper. i developed a nice mix of ingredents to make the normal cotton paper look like 1000 years old. here are some examples.

The process is quite simple all you need for the process of ageing the paper is this:

1/2 cup of water

2 teaspoons of coffee (instant coffee)

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

6 drops of black ink

3 drops of brown ink

12 drops of dark yellow ink

then jut mix it till it gets uniform then just aply it over the paper with a big brush let it get very very wet it wil lsoak the mix and it will do the magic let it dry and do it agian, it depend the times you do it the dark and old it will get if you want to make it faster some sun or a hair dryer can help a lot, but you need to be carefull cus after its dry it is quite unflexible if you need to add some old folds you need to wet it a little with fresh water just a little dont soak it. im trying to find out how to make it more flexible and i thin kadding beer to the mix will do the trick but its still an idea ill work later tonite!

well here are the examples i hope you fin this help full and you like them!


this one one have a lot of examples of how the paper take diferent tones. if you apply the mix one time it get just yellowish but if you do it two or 3 times it get darker as you can see here.

it seems like the paper is good to go ill post soon about drawing the first line and inking its a long process bcus it need a lot of patience!! but lets hope they turn good!

cheers

mr.Adolfito