April / May '18 Lite Challenge: My First Imaginary Map :)

[Incredible HLK]

Hello everyone!

I'm new here but I was eager to get started. I work in GIS professionally, but we work with existing data and real places, not so much in making our own maps and inventing our own places from scratch. I'm already learning so much here!!

Here's what I have so far. I brought the island template into QGIS and traced it, and now I'm playing around with naming things and effects. I plan to bring it into Illustrator later and make it pretty (default colors in QGIS are pretty awful LOL).

The names are from some of my favorite bands and what sounded good at the time for various features...subject to change.

I'm still not sure about making my own topography, and rivers. The lakes give a bit of a hint into the topography of the land, and where rivers might be, but I'm probably making this too complicated.

Anyway, happy to be here and happy to take any ideas or feedback.

### Latest WIP ###

[Bogie]

Great start, welcome to the Challenge! A higher resolution will make it easier to read the labels.

Thanks for going first!

[- JO -]

Good start !

I'm really looking forward to see how a professional cartographer will do with fantasy maps ! I think you have a lot to teach us about real topography and stuff ! I'm glad you join the guild and the challenge !

[aeshnidae]

The Sound Garden! That's fantastic. Like -JO-, I'm so interested to see a modern professional's take on the challenge!

[Meshon]

A nice eclectic collection of bands! Port Ishead is nicely done

[Incredible HLK]

Hey all, thanks so much for the feedback!

I've actually struggled quite a bit with the challenge. Despite my knowledge of GIS - it doesn't help much in creating your own stuff from scratch. A big part of GIS work is using high-quality, existing data, and there's some things (like making my own topography) that have just never been necessary before. So I'm learning a lot!

I've also had the good fortune of always using ESRI products at work and in school, and never bothered to play with its open-source brother, QGIS, like I am now.

Anyway, I tried my hand at some topography. I ended up bringing everything into Photoshop and trying to fake a DEM with some grayscale brushes painted as a new layer over the land. Then I added some effects so it didn't look so much like brushes. Not sure if I was successful. It still seems too flat in a lot of places, but I imagine my skills here will improve over time.

I brought my fake DEM into QGIS and modified it a lot to get it to fit and look sort of intentional. I tried an elevation color scale out first. I also put in some rivers, and tried to pay attention to the elevation and positions of the lakes with where the rivers should be. I think I still need to add some more rivers - I'm noticing now that a lot of lakes don't have them and a lot of mountains probably should. This is also something we pretty much never do in GIS - we know where rivers generally are in the world, so I've never had to guess before.



Now I'm playing with grayscale again. Colors and effects are definitely not final here.

### Latest WIP ###


I'm hoping to carve out some more time towards the end of the week for further progress. It's looking like the bulk of the work is going to happen in Illustrator.

[Mouse]

That's looking like a great start

A couple of tips here for your first ever imaginary map. The labels need to be a doddle to read - clear and focussed (though not screaming) - just clear, so you might want to consider swapping out that really heavily serifed font for something less spiky on the eyes, use white with a dark glow around the letters so that the labels stand out a bit. Of course, if you're going for 80's colours, there's no reason why you can't do them any colour whilst also adding a sufficient black or white glow around them to separate them from the background. A glow doesn't have to be obscenely huge or dramatc. Just enough to stop them merging with the background

I agree with Bogie that making the image larger would improve the legibility of the labels.