Kevin's Watch

The one problem I had in the books was being able to visually picture some of the locales, like Revelstone and Kevin's Watch. If anyone knows of a place/book I can find pictures of them I'd be eternally grateful.

I'm rereading Lord Foul's Bane and I still cannot get a good visual on Revelstone and it's nagging at me. Thanks in advance.

I've never been able to visualize such things in any books I've ever read. I just can't do it, and usually don't even bother looking at the maps, because it doesn't much help me. And going by the reaction of the First and Pitchwife, I guess this is a great loss on my part.

However - the above post is not me.

Really? One of the reasons I hate going to movies made from books is that the film director's vision is never the same as mine.

It's a shame I'm a lousy artist, 'cause I know exactly what Revelstone looks like.

Eric wrote:The one problem I had in the books was being able to visually picture some of the locales, like Revelstone and Kevin's Watch. If anyone knows of a place/book I can find pictures of them I'd be eternally grateful.

I'm rereading Lord Foul's Bane and I still cannot get a good visual on Revelstone and it's nagging at me. Thanks in advance.

You need to find a copy of The Atlas of The Land, by Karen Fonstad. It's been out of print for several years but I'm sure you can find a copy on ebay. I bought mine on ebay some months ago for around $12, including shipping.

MM, the reason Fist is saying it is not him is because his real name is Eric.

Thanks, Duchess, I forgot.

I've created a picture of what I think Revelstone looks like and sent it to Jay over at the KW site, but if you don't want to wait until it's published (hopefully it will be), here's a smaller preview:



I wasn't sure if the Giants actually preserved the natural rock formations when they built it or if they completely resculpted the rock face to form angular surfaces. I assumed they formed angular surfaces and thus made Revelstone look like a sort of angular, churchy castle. I'm not 100% on this picture, so if any of you have any ideas you want to contribute, please feel free to offer suggestions! If so, I'll have another crack at doing Revelstone using your ideas... so Cail especially, if you don't think film directors' visions match your own, here's your chance to have some artistic input on a pic of Revelstone!

Actually, this might be an interesting project... how close can I get to what you guys imagine Revelstone to look like!?

mmm..., no

Stone and Sea! I like it. I'm seeing chess pieces here and there but I like it. A good vision as any.

No, I see Revelstone as being much more natural - carved into the rock, preserving its natural beauty, rather intensifying it.

That's how I picture it, too. But when I went to the book, there was all that talk about ornament.

The wall was intricately labored -- lines and coigned and serried with regular and irregular groups of windows, balconies, buttresses -- orieled and parapeted -- wrought in a prolific and seemingly spontaneous multitude of details which appeared to be on the verge of crystallizing into a pattern. But light flashed and danced on the polished cliff face, and the wealth of variation in the work overwhelmed Covenant's senses...

It still pleases me to think of it as roughly worked rock, adapted as little as possible from the reality of the mountain.

amanibhavam wrote:No, I see Revelstone as being much more natural - carved into the rock, preserving its natural beauty, rather intensifying it.

I think so too.

Now I've got to get my Revelstone renderings up. As long as I can learn to edit and cut down photos so I can get my dragon painting and Mordant's Need Map up first.

Where's the Mordants Need map?! I want it! I'm hungry! And we hvae run out of pies...

OK, OK I'll load the stupid Wal-Mart edit-primer in the next two days and see if I can figure it out. As Bob said when Weebl's spaceship destroyed the pie factory, "MY LIFE HAS NO MEANING!"

Danlo: If you want some pointers on editing photos, I'll be happy to to help you out. Are you using Photoshop? And what type of editing do you need to do?

Amanibhavam, Darth Revan, Joy: I actually agree that Revelstone was probably intended to look more natural than I made it look, which was why I said I was not 100% on this pic. Question is, how natural - what sort of mix of artificiality and naturality are we talking here? Noting Joy's quote from LFB, it is obvious the Giants had considerably revamped the natural cliff face. I've had visualisations ranging from the very natural Caves of Elephanta in India, which look quite primitive, to the angular Camelot-like image above. Actually, the city of Edom (the place used as the last resting place of the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) is probably a reasonable approximation... I'll try a few things out in this area.

I might point out that I use Terragen and World-Machine to do the natural landscape, and Cinema4D to do the structure. Integrating the two is difficult and I'm still experimenting with ways of doing this. Revelstone represents a great challenge in that the building should appear to be part of the landscape, built INTO the cliff face, not just composited on top of it.

BTW, if anyone is interested in having a go at doing places in the Land with Terragen, it's available for free download here. It's easy to learn, intuitive and fun. You can also use World-Machine to easily generate natural looking landscapes (with erosion, river valleys etc) - you can get that (also free) here. You don't need to be an artist to use them either, so have a look and a play, and show us what you come out with!

Hey Mystikan! Thank you for sharing the links to Terragen & World-Machine. I've downloaded them and have generated a few landscapes with terragen. Very cool stuff. I'm a CAD draftsman by trade but I dabble in different art forms. I have a few as yet unused bits of software that might assist me in generating buildings and flora. I have a pretty clear idea as to what I think Revelstone looks like and if I can get up to speed on this software I may be able to contribute something. I think what you've created so far is pretty cool.

You should look at Genesis II. Very impressive stuff, and free, too. www.geomantics.com

amanibhavam wrote:You should look at Genesis II. Very impressive stuff, and free, too. www.geomantics.com

I gave Genesis a try, amanibhavam. You are right very cool and I like the price. I have a friend who uses a program called Bryce that is incredible for these things. I understand that it is very expensive though.