Creative tips: Collaboration

Reynard City is a collaboration between a number of fantastic creative people. Today we want to give an example of collaboration between our team and how it works.

This is a map of Reynard City by artist Natalie Knowles.

For a bit of fun, see if you can spot the various references and tributes on the map (for some of the names I suggest looking up our list of Patreon backers and artists in the issue credits).

When I got talking to Natalie about the idea, I wanted to incorporate various aspects. For example, I liked the way that the city in Tim Burton’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory had a mythic quality, while the mix of architectural styles in Mystery Men was a lot of fun (for reference, trailer below).

However Natalie also had her own ideas, drawing on her own inspirations, such as studying geography and travel, incorporating landmarks from Las Vegas, the accommodation at UEA and the circular road setups in Chinese cities. This resulted in the first concept map.

After this, Natalie produced two different map ideas and this is where having artists to talk to was crucial, as they pointed out that the top map was the best choice.

And so we had the first full version of the map. Thanks to artist Susie Gander we got some smart feedback, as we didn’t realise the text blocks were blocking some of the detail on the map.

And so this resulted in the final version of the map. Natalie asked me for some suggestions for street names, so did as many tributes/injokes off the top of my head!

Some of the road names include tributes to some of our artists, Patreon backers and sponsors, some featured here, as well as references to something that was a big influence on me growing up. Once again a massive thank you to everyone that makes Reynard City happen. This is more than a collaboration, it’s a community of some of the most awesome creative talents. Thank you!