Honourable Mentions: Hawk007- The Realm Of Rothran & Superfly30- Space Exploration
Winner: HermanSmellville- Space Map
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Congrats!
Congratulations, Herman Smellville! And thank you to all entrants!
I agree with JR’s choices for Honorable Mention as well. Hawk007’s “The Realm Of Rothran” has that parchment feel with great sepia tone. Superfly30’s “Space Exploration” has a classic science-fiction feel.
Herman’s entry hits home. It reminds me of tabletop and turn-based games like Battletech, 2300 AD, etc. with their hexagon maps. The color-coded layout with the starry background are extremely effective. The attack vector from the sun implies real-time action.
First, congratulations to all the entrants… Not a bad job in the lot!
Second, I hate to disagree with Atomic Punk, but his reasons for preferring Herman’s work were pretty much my reasons for preferring Superfly’s!
Hexes are fine, when you’re trying to carry around a physical map, and you don’t have a Minivan to dedicate to gaming usage. They work, they’re okay, they cost a lot less than miniatures and artificial terrain… but they don’t look as good, and we’re doing Science fiction, here, not the 1970s!
Both works use color coding, and the curving vector arrow actually looks rather silly…
Superfly did something where you see, not just a close up of a Map, but the environment the Map exists IN, and I think that made it much more effective!
This was a very hard one to choose who should win. When it came down to it, my reasoning for placing each of these guys where they are was thus:
Hawk’s entry was exactly what I’d envisioned people entering when I set the challenge, and it was done very well. The stylisations and colour really made the piece feel authentic, especially with the runes and patterning on the map. However it was lacking a few things, any sort of markings on the map signifying locations (other than the text), so no cities or ancient ruins or such like that you might expect of a fantasy map, which was a bit of a let down, but the piece was excellent otherwise.
Superfly’s suffered similarly, but it a different way.The picture as a whole is superb, but the map is not. If you look at the map, it just shows a few planets and has a starry background. There’s nothing to it. And this was a challenge focusing on MAPS, not everything else. So whilst all of the ancillaries where above and beyond everything else that anyone else entered this week, I couldn’t really give the win to Superfly because the map was lacking compared to pretty much everyone else’s. If he’d have put a bit more time into the map, Superfly probably would have won this one.
HermanSmellville’s was the best balance in my opinion. The map is fantastic. It’s amazingly detailed, with not just locations shown, but actions, inputs and other factors. True there aren’t many locations shown, but there’s a lot more going on. And like Superfly, HS doesn’t just show the map, he shows a character interacting with it, albeit not to the same extend, but the effect still works. The hexagonal grid system is a neat way to divide up a map of space, like AP said, very reminiscent of a number of games. And the colours bring this out even more, not only does it make it stand out from the other contestants by the colours, but it adds to the feel of the piece, furthering the story that is being told.
So that’s why I put them where I did.
Not to worry, WP–in other dimensions each of the others of us won.
Congrats, HS.
Thanks for even mentioning me in the same post as Hawk007 and Superfly30. I don’t think my map measures up to either of theirs. I had trouble finding a way to set up a land-based map. I wanted to do ancient Rome, but couldn’t think of a way to do the River Tiber. The space hex map idea is from a board game I made called Space Admiral, which is coincidentally based on nostalgia for 70s tabletop games and an old WWII movie reel news serial called Victory at Sea. I do think mine needs lots of work. Not sure why my stuff got mentioned, but I appreciate it and I look up to the vets around here.