Malacandra

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I really hope this is ok, since the voting on the Lite Challenge hasn't finished at the time of starting this thread, but I really want to finish this map, and if I leave it even just a few days I might not get around to it, and it will never be finished. I tend to lose interest in stuff rather quickly if I stop working on it.

'Inspired by Malacandra' was an entry to the June/July Lite Challenge - map an oasis, set by Bogie, where I chose to make a map inspired by the novel 'Out of the Silent Planet' by CS Lewis - the first book in his Cosmic Trilogy, published in 1938.

This WIP thread is a continuation of the work that I felt I never quite finished for the challenge.

Just to recap, for anyone who doesn't want to read all the way through the challenge WIP thread, Malacandra (Mars) is depicted in Lewis's writing as having only a residual atmosphere remaining from the days of an interplanetary war between the respective deities that rule the planets. This atmosphere is concentrated in the canals of Mars (which at the time of the book being published had only just been dismissed as illusions caused by the relatively primitive optics of early telescopes). Lewis chose to go with the myth of the canals despite this new revelation, and he filled them with the remaining atmosphere of Mars.

The surface is barren. The ancient forests are petrified. The vast majority of the life on Malacandra is concentrated in the bottom of the canals, where warm water gushes from the rocks into the canals and keeps the local environment warm enough for life. The 'grass' is pale pink, the trees purple - the cliffs whitish green. From the bottom of the canals the visible tops of the petrified trees above them are like clouds of pink foam.

The colours were (and still are) a definite challenge for me - especially since I don't particularly like pink all that much! LOL!

This is how I left it:



And going back a few stages this is where it was when I was last happy with the colours (before the forests were added):



The two major changes/improvements I want to make to the map are:

• Getting the forests right so that I am happy with the overall colour scheme
  
• Making the island of Meldilorn larger, with respect to the description of it in the book, where it somewhat dominates the canal

Other things I could have done better:

• The path needs a way up and down the cliff
  
• Labelling is pretty poor
  
• I've considered call outs showing the different sentient life forms, but don't know if my drawing skills are up to it
  
• More detail generally.