the full color map, and. . . (Patreon)

since we finally finished the map on stream, uh, last week... i'm a little overdue!

but some before and after, i happened to actually find some pictures of the in-progress map. . . .like when i was first drawing it ? so let's post those first. 

like i said, this was originally just 4  8x11.5 sheets of paper scotch taped together and i took them with me and drew through various classes and one piece episodes. the seams between pages had to be removed in the final scan. 

as you can see, i started with the border and a sketch... and a compass because i'm like "this is a thing maps have, right?" and then just went all in on opal. 

the above version was dated 12-12-2010
the below version was dated 12-19-2010. so, one week later:

honestly i feel like as far as in-progress stuff goes, this isn't super exciting because you can barely see the loose sketch lines in each step, and aside from that i just picked one area to do in full detail at a time. that worked for me, i guess. helped me feel good enough about it to keep going. from what i recall this isn't the scanner not picking up the pencil-- i just didn't do much sketching beyond the basic structure and perspective of the city.  

also i feel like that particular mountain turned out way better than most of the other mountains. never could live up to its glory. i had no idea how to draw mountains, btw. didn't use references for anything just kinda winged it. i know i'm making some aspiring artist cry right now and im sorry

12-23-2010, four days later: 

we're just adding coral and onyx here ig. i think the wall of the outer city was my way of cutting myself off until i was ready to figure out what was on the other side of it. i guess i kinda did that in game too. 

i have a feeling that the crack in the stairway was originally a slip of the hand. i started just drawing in cracks if i made a stray mark to cover it. not all of them were like that, but some definitely were. 

unfortunately, the next image i have isn't until 2011-04-14. so this is four months later, and given that it only took four days for coral and onyx, i assume i didn't work on it a whole lot during in that time:

finished the city all the way up to beryl, did the boxed in apophyll, wasteland, and started sketching chrysolia trees. wasn't sure how to draw trees either, just took a guess. 

i remember spending a lot of time in call with my partner at the time, it was  a casual relationship, she'd be like "whatcha doin'?" and pretty much every time the answer would be "oh, drawing buildings. filling in windows." like, every time. i think she got tired of asking, lol. 

i knew even at this point that if this were a game, (which i wasn't planning to make it one or anything, really, please believe me--) you'd get to the desert via train. and i figured, if it were a game, (which it wasn't and would never be, i swore--) it would be cute to have the little cave north of apophyll, making people wonder what kind of secret stuff would be in there.
who could've guessed it would be nothing at all???
it's like i'm gamefreak.
sea spirit's den vibes anyone? 

... aaaaaaand that's the last image !!! i finished the map in march of 2012 like two weeks before i failed to resist the impulse to make a game based off of it. i think i got so embarrassed of taking a long time to finish out the rest of it (from not working on it for months at a time) that i just stopped posting it altogether. oops. 

that said-- and mind you i have no memory of doing this-- i did find this edit to the prior image:

again, i was not planning to make it a game at the time, and i do not remember this. so this is juicy even to me. some observations:

no names anywhere. hadn't decided on the crystal theme, just "districts". southern lake. southern wastelands. the names are descriptive and nothing more. pokemon technical institute was the name before Onyx was decided as the district-- it's a direct reference to the schools in the anime. remember uh the cubone episode in season 1? 

gyms! you can see for the grass and fighting gyms i listed both kiki and victoria. fern and florinia. i think i was just trying to cram all of our characters somewhere on this map. but you'll notice shelly's gym-- no bennett. flying gym for heather at corey's location.  poison gym-- cain, no corey.
orphanage neither drawn nor listed.
so this tells me why some leaders ended up bunched together like they did in game. this map was started during season 1, when the season 2 characters (ciel, bennett, orphanage crew) didn't exist yet. then when they were added i had to mentally rearrange everything and make room for a bunch more leader characters to give a place to on the map later because i took so dang long to actually draw it.

and like that's fine, i guess. 

all right, now the finished product, let's go

i'll be posting this on socials in a bit, but you all get it first cuz i like you. thanks for hanging around and supporting me in the -checks watch- twelve years it took me to get the map to this point. 

...also, speaking of things that are for you all because we like you... i think it's time for me to hand this post over to cass to do the part of this that i have a million reservations about. 

--

yo what up BICHES

ok so remember how you and literally everyone was like "omg this map is SO cool can we get like a poster of it"

well you were right. it is very cool.

and one of the people who said that was jan on the dev server. it was like 3am and i was NOT sleeping so i said the magic words.

"jesus FUCKING christ"
"FINE"
"if you STUPID people"
"want a STUPID poster"
"for your STUPID money"
"then give me like 30 minutes."
"cuz we also want a poster."
"lowkey."

and lo, i set up a system where you can give me money for a poster.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/givemoneyforposter?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

[EDIT: Store is back up. Sorry about that! Even though it is back up we still have received 0 communication.]

(yeah it's exactly what i called the store, so what)

ame has some nerves about this because we haven't actually gotten our poster yet. the EU kids have gotten theirs, though! they report that it looks good! if you're in the EU and you order yourself a poster right now, you can still probably get it before we do. rub it in our faces.

so you'll see that there are a couple of size options. the 18" x 24" one is the OG size. life size. about-the-same-size-as-the-sketch size.
but maybe you don't want one that big! or you don't want to spend all that money. idk i ain't you. in that case, we've got a 12" x 16" and an 8" x 10". the former of those is basically just a smaller version of the OG, but the 8" x 10" has me fudging the aspect ratio of the poster a lil bit. it's still an option because i'm all for giving you options! just know it is not quite the optimal experience.

there are also a bunch of different material options! i do not make these posters; they are made by some company i found on google. that comment earlier about taking 30 minutes to set this up wasn't a joke. i guess there are enough people on the internet who want to sell their neat artwork that someone decided to set up a place where you can just get your shit printed. and boy do they print shit on everything. shoes? you got it. shirts? duh. blankets? why not! pet collar tags? yes. they really offer this.

so you can get your poster on glossy paper or matte paper! framed or unframed. this shit gets pretty expensive for reasons that are beyond my understanding. but it's also a really cool poster. i won't knock you for getting a big poster in a nice frame because that's exactly what we did. it's a very cool map.

there's also an option for canvas if you really want that! i have no idea how this will look, but it'll definitely have the map entirely visible on the front of it! go ham, fam. if canvas is what lights your fire, i am here to support. hell, i'll even throw up the blanket option if someone really wants it on a blanket. you could make little figurines of the characters and reenact the story. (shit this idea is starting to sound kinda neat. who wants a blanket?)

we definitely want to offer this to everyone (or, well, I do- ame is a smol bundle of nerves) but we also want to avoid blaspheming upon the great nin10 gods who can smite us with their lawyers. so you all get it first!!

(also, i put up a picture of kyra to test whether or not this worked. i also left that up there if you want a picture of a cat. a pretty cat.)