Yeah, yeah, catching up again I know!!

November’s issue was a neat re-working of the standard CC3 overland style (i.e. terrain fills, bitmap symbols etc) in a hex-mapping style. Of course, if hex maps are the topic, what better subject to utilise the style than a reworking of my classic Havenscoast hex map, which forms the background of the site banner, and indeed which I’ve posted about multiple times (e.g. here and here).

So here it is:

I must admit when I first started the map I thought the colours a little too bold – it seems most of the recent overland style in the Annual have been more muted colour schemes, but in the end the colours blend and complement each other just fine.

The ability to mix the variation bitmaps fills (i.e. for mountains and hills) with the pleasing regularity of a hex map also turned out very well. I especially like how the forests turned out!

One thing that normally really bugs me about hex maps is the ‘blocky’ coastline; in fact I usually take great pains to draw a normal coastline and trim the hexes to suit, which is a fairly tedious process. With this style I left it, and I found that the glow added to the edge of the landmasses very neatly takes your eye away from the straight lines and makes them seem much more natural.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased how this Challenge effort turned out!