Describing the Kaelomaara Valley

I wanted to begin painting the picture of the Kaelomaara Valley to get you all excited about the Devil's Fork. This post will be showing you the implications of my recent post on Environmental Art in a very practical way. It is art heavy, and each piece is being thumbnailed. So be sure to click on each one for full view.

To start, this is the entire valley. As you can see, there are two upcountry rivers, the Kaelo and the Maara (highlighted in Purple and Green). The edges of these colored zones are defined by massive cliffs and mountains that rise to stratospheric heights. Beyond the rim of the upper valleys are extremely high mountains that only a brave few venture into.

The upper valleys look like this:

In winter, the ridgelines look like this:

Looking across those valleys from the lip of the lower valley, looks like this:

These rivers meet at the Devil's Fork and then descend into the lower valley. I am still working on a piece to depict the Fork itself, but the waterfall descent looks like this:

There are several other streams that fall from the upper valleys into lower ones. They look like this:

The lower valley is settled and populated by mostly humans. This is a political map of the Duchy.

Looking up from this valley, the cliffs look like this:

Or this:

Even at it's most traversible slope, it still looks like this:

Looking from one edge of the lower valley, across the expanse, to another. With a fog concealing the valley floor:

All of these pieces will appear in the book. The photography will be given a filter to appear as if painted (and thus match the drawn art of the characters and locations), but otherwise unedited.

And as far as wolves go, per my previous post, I have secured a great image to use for them. Stay tuned for a sneak peek at that later this week.