Last week, I posted the final month’s effort for my 2013 Cartographer’s Annual Challenge, bringing to an end 12 months of enjoyable and productive mapping using the wonderful styles and tools provided by the folks at Profantasy. You can browse the whole set of maps here!

But now it’s 2014. Life rolls on, and so does the Cartographer’s Annual. The January issue  is already out, and so I need to get cracking on the 2014 Challenge; no rest for the wicked!!

Last year the Challenge was all about getting more mapping done personally, and making full use of each Annual issue. This year, let’s get the whole community involved!! Without further ado, I’d like to announce the:

Ok, so what’s this then??

It’s simple really. Each month, lots of cartographers (hopefully) will produce a map or other work inspired by the current Annual issue, and they’ll post it for everyone to enjoy! This site will attempt to link all this great work together for inspiration and convenience!

So what are the ground rules? Well, as few as possible of course, but I envisage things running roughly like this:

• On the first of the month (or as near as I can manage), this blog will post a preview of the new Annual issue.
• During the month, once you’ve posted your work (anywhere you like e.g. on your own blogs, or the friendly Profantasy Community Forum) simply link back to them in the comments section of the monthly post.
• I will of course attempt to post my own work during the month – which will still be tied to my Tolrendor setting as per the 2013 Challenge – hopefully the community will ‘inspire’ me to be more on track each month than last year! 🙂
• At the end of each month, I will post a summary of all the great work, including a gallery of images, and links back to your site/post (I’m assuming if you contribute to the Festival that you’re happy for me to do this, and that there are no copyright issues etc).

If you’re not into cartography, you can of course still participate. I’d love to see any other ideas, such as RPG content, artwork, short-stories – I guess the main concept is that it should be inspired by or related to the Annual issue!

So that’s it!! As January is already half-way through, let’s not waste any further time, so I’ll treat this post as the ‘preview’ post:

January 2014 Issue

The first issue for 2014 is a new overland style: World War 2 Area Maps! This is an interesting small-scale overland style, obviously aimed at modern/steampunk type settings, but I’m sure can be usefully used for other genres!!

Let’s all get mapping, creating and posting!!