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dasomerville
βοΈ
[22274389]
[2012-06-03 03:36:53 +0000 UTC]
(United States)
# Statistics
Favourites: 54; Deviations: 70; Watchers: 886
Watching: 138; Pageviews: 80441; Comments Made: 75; Friends: 138
# Interests
Favorite visual artist: Michelangelo; Gottfried Helnvein; Hayao Miyazaki; Rembrandt; Paul Lasaine; Robert McCall; Rowland Hilder; John Ruskin; Andrew WyethFavorite movies: The American Astronaut; Master and Commander; Princess Mononoke; Porco Rosso; Grave of the Fireflies
Favorite TV shows: Game of Thrones; My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic; Firefly; IT Crowd; Doctor Who
Favorite bands / musical artists: Tom Waits; Rachmaninov; Tanya Davis; The Killers; Joanna Newsom; La Roux; Townes van Zandt; Bob Dylan
Favorite books: Lord of the Rings; Fahrenheit 451; The Farthest Shore; Sorrows of the Ancient Romans; Dune; Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin novels
Favorite games: Thief: The Metal Age; The Neverhood; Myst: Exile; Grim Fandango; Mass Effect 2;
Tools of the Trade: Anything that gets too close
Other Interests: rock climbing, hiking, camping, fishing, reading, working out,
# About me
29 years old, part-time customer support at a call center and part time "all of this other stuff". No art school experience, just personal practice and the occasional local life drawing class. Graduated from Arizona State University in 2007 with a degree in Architecture and promptly decided to never use it for anything again except to further my goal to draw werewolf cities and massive castles.# Comments
Comments: 66
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In case anyone watches this page: Daniel died last night after years of battling brain cancer. He passed with his family, in their home. He was talented and loved.
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I had no idea; I have no words.Β I did not know him at all; I was pestering him for an update to Winterhaven and all he said was he was busy and not feeling well.Β That was over 2 years ago and...well...wow.Β The world has lost a great talent; he will not be forgotten.
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I'm having such a hard time accepting this to be true. His talent for cartography was intense, and the maps I've used have forever changed the lives of my players and the people watching our games.Β
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Oh my god. I was looking for a way to contact him for comissions, scrolled down to see this. That is absolutely terrible. How sad.
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I'd love to commission you, the two big dungeons you've released here are top-notch quality. I'll e-mail you for more details, hope you're still taking them!
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Just found your page today and wow - definitely the best battlemaps I've seen. You deserve to be working for Paizo or WotC. (Not that their maps aren't nice as is) Your other work is great too!
I saw a few of your old comments mentioning a tutorial. Did you ever get around to it? Also on that note, have you ever considered sharing your collection of textures?
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I haven't yet (made any tutorials). My impression of Paizo is that they've got two artists that they'll continue to use forever (one for maps and one for concept), and my opinion of WotC is that they'll happily stick with Mike Schley, because he's predictable and always gets his stuff done early. I know Mike Schley, actually; good guy. He came to visit me in the hospital when I was ill. He's young and talented, and not at all stuck up about being the current favorite artist of Wizards.
That said, I do hope to get finished with a tutorial of how I actually make these maps sometime "soon" (i.e. eventually). If I ever get well again... -_- and rich enough to afford the software needed to film my computer screen and time-lapse it into a short movie. Sorry, no access to my textures at this point; since I created them, I have to hold on to them until I get recognition (i.e. eventually) -_-
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Hey, hope things are well. Hope to see a new map soon. You are an inspiration.
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hey, great job, could you give me a favor? could you write me the puzzle and if possible more information for your salt hall quest/puzzle? I figured the colors and shapes but don't know the rest, thanks. I would like to add it to my campaign.Β
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Hi Rob,
Sorry I didn't see this earlier!
I was fully intending to add my campaign notes along with these images when I posted them, but life intervened. Unfortunately I've been so busy doing other commission projects that I never got back to doing that. I still definitely intend to post all of the information and notes I created wen I ran this campaign (and believe me, there are a LOT) but I can't say just when. I have a lot of related art and info that's burning a hole in my harddrive at the moment , so keep checking back here. Eventually it will all show up
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Yes, definitely! I've got 3 or 4 in the making right now, I've just been swamped with commission work lately so I haven't had time to finish and post them. But this page will be jumping to life again within the next month.
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Welcome! Hope you like it. Soon to add new stuff!
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Come back! We want more fantasy cartography!Β
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Someone posted you on /r/battlemaps. Lovely work you do. Agree with gilbum, I would love to see your creation process and try and take away something new to learn. I'd love to get into 'higher' level mapping. Your maps are just gorgeous. +watch.
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Your maps are some of the best I've come across. Β You're an an inspiration for me just starting off with mapping. Β Would you be willing to do a high level overview of your process sometime? Β I think a lot of people would appreciate it!
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Sure! I'll start putting something together. It takes time to assemble a step-by-step tutorial, though, so bear with me.
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I've seen your maps around a lot online and always thought they were some of the best I'd ever seen. Β I've started doing a lot of design work for dnd recently (mostly editing existing content) and I think I'm going to start making some maps entirely on my own now. Β None of this is on my deviantart, I post on tumblr now.
Glad the chemotherapy is working!
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Daniel, your maps are incredible. I am running a 4E campaign and we are in Fallcrest right now. Looking through your art I saw the maps for the Salt Hall. Do you have any more info on what that's all about. Just curious, as it seems a really cool concept for the town.
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Hey, thanks for your interest! And sorry for my late reply.
The concept for Salt Hall in the campaign I am running is that Fallcrest (a standard Wizards of the Coast city that I embellished on) is actually an extremely old settlement that was once the domain of a branch of dwarven mystics who worshiped the stars. They built their city deep underground, expanding a natural salt cavern, and never venturing out into the World Above. It was only the topmost portion of the settlement that was devoted to the temples of the Astronomers, who had towers that rose up above the surface of the earth so they could do their heavenly observations and create their prophesies to deliver to their deeper-dwelling brethren. Some kind of disaster in the distant past collapsed most of the underground chambers, resulting in the sheer cliff you see in Fallcrest's topography these days. The wizard's tower in Fallcrest is the only remaining vestige of these above-ground astronomical structures, and the human settlement of Fallcrest was built up around it.
Currently the only access to the top-level shrines of the Starwatchers, about 60 feet below the surface, is a partially collapsed cave in the cliff that runs through the city. These temples are considered to be haunted by the locals, who in any case can't even access the entrance without serious rock-climbing gear.
The inside of these chambers hints at some past holocaust, with pools of poisonous water seeping or gushing in through cracks in the walls and half-drowning some of the rooms. The corners of the spaces are filled with the dusty skeletons of the old dwarven townspeople, and the pools are filled with the same bodies, eerily preserved. In some of the chambers (for example, the room with the black and white dais) mummified bodies are actually strung up between the columns in the chambers as though they were lynched. I had hordes of undead dwarves rising from the pools if the water is ever disturbed by the party. There was also a huge undead kruthik hivelord that came out of the pit in front of the statues in the Green room if the puzzle is completed incorrectly.
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These maps are just amazing! Really gorgeous work.
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I would like to second the post below me! Your maps are wonderful. I hope that you may continue to delve into this, it is a wonderful asset to the D&D (and other tabletop RPG) community. I am making some maps myself, thank you for the inspiration!
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Thank you very much for makeing you wonderful and incrdibly detaild maps avalable, let alone the thanks for not chargeing. They are a constant souce of inspiration and of constant use to me (my players in particular grateful for the Winterhaven map).
I hope you recover quickly and with no compilcations.
Thank you
Morbalus (i'm a nurse and everything)
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Hope you're doing well man. My prayers go to you. Fantastic work, you're trully inspiring.
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Thanks for the given support !! greetz len
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Good luck Daniel, wishing you a complete recovery and getting you straight back into what you do best; creating that amazing fantasy artwork and maps ! All the best from the United Kingdom gaming community.
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You've got some truly amazing mapping work here. If you're not working as a professional mapper for Wizards, Paizo, or some other company, you should be. +1 watch from me.
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And dang, I just read your journal entry, the reddit posts, and the indiegogo page. I've got squat to donate, but my wife and I will keep you in our thoughts and prayers.
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No problem! We appreciate everyone who donated, but short of winning the lottery, this debt is the kind of thing you sort of have to resign yourself to. I'll be paying it off forever, but it's better than having brain cancer.
I'm not working for any of the big companies, but I've been getting into working for smaller, independent jobs for people. It's hard work, but good work. 
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I'm glad you're back home and the surgery was successful. Ask the hospital for help: a lot of them have charitable organizations that can assist with paying some or, occasionally, all of the bill.
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I absolutely love your work.
I played AD&D years and years ago and left it because I was embarrassed how much I got involved with my work. Nothing close to the detail you've got with your art, more about the world building and all of the stories I could come up with for that world.
Looking at what you've got here shows me I got nothing on you. This is all gorgeous and detailed and pure lovely. Keep it up. If I could buy a big print I would frame it and put it on my office wall for inspiration.
Well done.
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Very cool stuff. I admire your attention to details that would help enhance the experience for a campaign.
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Beautiful work. I can't wait to put them to use.
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I came here from reddit. I really hope your surgery turns out in the best possible way. You have AMAZING talent and I also hope people are fighting over you after handing out cards at GenCon. That you don't already have a job doing art is just criminal.
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wishing you the best of luck from reddit. you're crazy talented. i hope everything goes okay for you!
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Great work! Wishing you the best from Reddit. I'm jealous of your D&D group; I hope they know how lucky they are!
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