Hi, all!
I’m a novelist, not a cartographer or illustrator, so I’d appreciate some help making my current work-in-progress’s setting come to life for the reader. I’m looking for a cartographer who can translate my narrative description of place and object orientation into visuals and who has the imagination to create a city map that has a vaguely Nepalese feel, perhaps combined with a little rusty “dying earth” subgenre vibe.
Map:
One city map showing overall city layout with six major neighborhoods/districts, several significant landmarks, and a large tiered cemetery built along a cliffside.
Details:
Katakot is the capital of a small, postapocalyptic nation located where Nepal was before a mass-extinction event significantly changed human culture. Katakot is located in a geographic depression (maybe a caldera?) around a river and was once a defensively domed, environmentally protected area during the ancient bio- and nano-tech wars. Its encircling hills/cliffs may have once been artificial but, if so, they are long since grown over and natural-looking. The city’s protective dome was torn down at least two hundred years ago; its irregularly broken, curving support beams still circle the city and are used to hang long ceremonial flags. A wall roughly marking the old boundary of the dome and providing some control over entry into the city is optional, as would be any outskirt neighborhoods, butcheries, etc. The cemetery along one side of the city is steeply tiered as it rises up the slope and full of wood markers and stone memorials rather than graves; think something akin to Japanese mountainside cemeteries — no bodies, just memorials (at the base of the cemetery stands the city crematorium). The Chaynes river runs through the city and has been artificially routed into tunnels & chambers built inside the cliffs, where it becomes part of the civic sewerage/filtering system; it may be shown reappearing outside the central city if outskirts are included.
Six city districts must be labeled (see Right of Rule for basics; I can provide more detail, as well). Several major streets (e.g., the Processional, Kovidāra Way) and landmarks should be marked, including a palace, a prison keep, a temple complex (think larger Bakhatpur/Durbar Square-looking structures; temples and admin buildings), a spot at the industrial base of the city where great doors lead into the cliff and an adjacent dais and ghat run down to the Chaynes, a university, the government’s assembly hall, etc. Mass and motor transport no longer exist, so neighborhoods may be tight and winding, overbuilt across the centuries.
Central metropolitan Kathmandu might be a useful starting point w/regard to Katakot’s scale, but Katakot’s layout can significantly differ from Kathmandu’s; they’re not the same city. Re: size, think “capital city of a small postapocalyptic, primarily agrarian nation” — not huge, but big enough to have diverse districts and to form the nation’s bureaucratic, economic, and industrial center. Green spaces, if indicated at all, should be minimal; some trees along the wide Processional and in the Great Temple complex, perhaps, but Katakot is very old and in a drought, so it doesn’t have big parks or lots of greenery, even around the Chaynes.
I think 3D-ish maps look great, e.g., the following, but the cartographer would have to be able to capture Katakot’s non-European feel, which I realize may be challenging:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_haJ4Mky-Ek...th+no+text.jpg
http://thelordsofwinter.wikispaces.c...g_illustration
A well-drawn flat map would also be perfectly acceptable, with keyed locations, along the lines of this and most other detailed RPG city maps I've seen:
http://www.unreal-fantasy.pl/gfx/wfr...online-map.jpg
Technical:
300 dpi minimum
PNG output and native files
8x11 print size (or as appropriate, but the end product should still be legible if reproduced in the front matter of a paperback book)
B&W preferred; sepia tones or vintage color OK if map will also print cleanly in B&W.
A layered PSD file with a notation about the fonts used would be ideal, so that I can edit the map should any place names or locations change during manuscript revisions.
Copyright:
Full ownership of copyright by Dru Pagliassotti.
The cartographer will be credited wherever the map may be used (website, future novel, promotional material, etc.)
The cartographer will retain the right to exhibit the image as part of her/his portfolio but not to exploit it for commercial gain.
Timeline:
Negotiable, but reasonably soon.
Payment:
I’m looking for professional to semi-professional quality. Please include quotes when you send me samples/links to your portfolio.
I prefer GoogleWallet over PayPal, but I can probably wrestle PayPal into submission if that’s your only payment-acceptance option.
Contact Info:
Dru Pagliassotti
drupagliassotti—(at)—g—mail—(dot)—com
Dru Pagliassotti | The Mark of Ashen Wings
Thank you!