World Map - Unnamed

[Hustle]

* sneakily deletes the second and third maps from his post to quickly hide his shame *

Just joking.

But really, THANK YOU. I appreciate that feedback. Every piece of your comment hit the nail on the head concerning a different aspect of the map. This is a wonderful jumping off point into a second draft of the continent.

To-Do list:

- Randomize coast to add inlets/gulfs
- Distribute "shore" waters and sands more conservatively
- Narrow mtn. ranges, and possibly add more for realism
- Shrink regions

Thank you again, waldronate! Back to the drawing board for some improvements.

[Hustle]

After taking a few steps back, I decided to approach this a little differently. Rather than try and create such a detailed map over such a large area, I thought it might be best to go simple until the scale necessitated a certain amount of detail.

So, for the world view, very simple. For a continental view, maybe some features and borders. And for a regional view, pour on more detail and features.

I feel like I'm all over the place, saying "I'll draw a world map!" then "Here's a continent map!" but I suppose these things happen on your first attempt.

Short story: Here's a new B&W world view mock-up on 2000x1000; when projected on Google Earth, there seems to be a limited amount of distortion on the main continents, which is nice. They're spread apart well enough to have a couple of vast oceans and maybe cause one or more of the continents to be inaccessible to the others.

I might just mess around for a while and try to solidify this world map before going further down. Waldronate's insightful comments got me thinking more about scale, and getting everything on a proper globe helps me in that line of thinking.

[Mouse]

Looking good Hustle

How did you do the globe projections?

[Hustle]

Thank you Mouse. I used Google Earth and projected it at full size.

- Add Image Overlay (Ctrl+Shift+O if you're working in Windows)
- Browse for image
- On the "Location" tab of the Image Overlay window, ensure the parameters are:

90°00'00.00"N
90°00'00.00"S
180°00'00.00"E
180°00'00.00"W

With that, your 2:1 ratio'd image should cover the entirety of the globe! Also, turn off Earth's layers so you don't have our pesky continent outlines poking through.

[Pixie]

I don't know which version of google earth you are using, but they made the Pro version available for free recently. The Pro version is able to measure any area on the globe, and not just the length of straight lines, which is good if "you're thinking more about scale".

I also use Google Earth Image Overlay. Here's an advice - if you plan on using a larger map, Google Earth might not be able to work it all in one chunk. It's a good idea, then, to split it into 4 or 8 or 16.

[Hustle]

Thanks for the heads up, Pixie. I didn't know Pro was free now!

I'm not sure I follow with your second point. Might be misunderstanding the advice - I think this size would probably be the largest I'll go. Do you mean larger map as in bigger filesize? Sorry, I think the communication barrier has to do with my limited knowledge of GE and GIMP.

[Pixie]

I meant bigger filesize. There's no way you can cover a region larger than the whole globe, we agree on that

[Hustle]

After a week or two of back-tracking and reading endless tutorials, I've started toying with some hand drawn features on a top down-ish map.

Since scale was my biggest issue before (trying to fit what is essentially an entire continent into one frame and then add copious amounts of detail), I started small.

This Inland Sea and Strait region feels a lot more at home with the level of detail and features I've started working on. It's fun practicing these hand drawn methods for features, too!

[Hustle]

I'm having a blast with this! It's slow progress, but it's coming along, and messing around with colors and overlay layers is so neat!

For the longest time, I assumed I'd be stuck doing B&W maps in GIMP, as every time I tried coloring something it would turn into a mess. I don't know why I didn't try Screen, Soft Light, and Overlay color layers before!

Here's some progress with Mountains, Rivers, and Forests lightly colored.


And here's one a bit more "cartoonish" with a land color overlaid on all the others.


Any tips or tricks for coloring/drawing features? I'm far from finished, but I'm beginning to enjoy this more and more.

[Hustle]

Last bit of an update today. I find myself eager to start placing towns/cities on every map I make, so I created a new layer to throw them around whenever I see a nice spot developing for one, but easy enough to toggle off if I get carried away and distracted.

That said, ignore my template of "copy/paste" building elements over in the eastern sea.

Latest WiP for this region, B&W until I finalize the feature layers.