Massive City Map for Paizo

[Gamer Printshop]

What's the population of this centre?

M.

80,000 - 100,000 (based on 8,500 buildings, plus on this map)

[Cheomesh]

That seems rather dense - assuming every building is inhabited, that's 9-10 per building.  Good show.

M.

[Tangential]

Some building might have multiple floors. And by some I mean lots, abnd by multiple, I'm think pagodic towers.

GP
Do Absalom! Doooo eeeet!

[Gamer Printshop]

Honestly, big city maps are WORK, I usually don't make big city maps unless I have to. Paizo paid me to create the map at the start of this thread, though I was given freedom on what it would look like, including the number of buildings - Paizo paid me an extra $100 for this map, when they seen the quality and detail.

I do have to make another big city map in the next month or so, I'll need to design the imperial capital of Kaidan, Fukuhara-kyo, which will probably be bigger than Kasai (and because of that, I'm not looking forward to it...)

So unless Paizo pays me to create Absalom, it's unlikely I'll take on the challenge for personal mapping.

Here's my most recent map. It's for my upcoming Way of the Samurai, for Kaidan (PFRPG), called Kawashi, a sample samurai castle town for the last part of that supplement.



Link to larger version of this map Kawashi Map (full scale)

GP

[Tangential]

Aw, that's a perfectly reasonable, thou disappointing stance. Do you take on the luxury of personal challenges or do you mostly produce for your products and freelance these days? A last thought on Absalon is that since, much reference materials exists, it might be easier to recreate. Or does that make it harder for the artist?

[Gamer Printshop]

There are a number of fantasy cartographers motivated as fans for various published RPG settings, fictional worlds, etc. Me, I'm generally motivated by the creation process, like a campaign builder, I prefer to build my fantasy worlds from the ground up. I tend not to create maps based on others creations. Part of my reasonings for creating Kaidan, my published setting is to give me an outlet to creating a custom world, per my own specifications.

If a publisher asks me to create a specific map, I'll do so and do as best a job as possible... but I look forward to getting it done and over with. Most of my maps I create in single day, or a couple days at most, because I don't want to spend too much time on any one project. I do take on quite a few map commissions, but most of my time is in the development, design, cartography, illustration, and page layout for Kaidan.

For somebody who might be a real fan of Golarian and a cartographer, creating a map of Absalom might be a welcome opportunity. For me, while I would certainly work for Paizo again if offered another commission, I'd jump at the chance, however, any map I normally create is publishing fodder, but isn't that when doing it for somebody else's intellectual property (without being asked by the publisher), because I'll never see gainful opportunity for doing so. Not that I need money for every map I create, but the potential has to be there for me to do the attempt.

Even the maps I create for the Cartographers' Guild monthly challenge has the potential to be published down the road.

I don't mean to disappoint, but right now I spend huge swathes of time making maps or working on my own projects. The opportunity to do a fun project only, has gotten less and less.