Welcome to the weekly round-up, a summary of all that’s been happening at the Guild over the past seven days.
Atlas Awards
Are you excited for voting to start?
The nomination threads will be locked around 3rd March, so there are only days left to pick your favourite maps of last year. Remember, you can see all of 2017’s eligible maps in this (image-heavy) thread, so go make yourself a coffee, and have a browse. Afterwards, head for the Atlas Awards folder to nominate your picks.
Watch out for the announcement about our voting procedure this year. It’ll be a slightly different format from last time.
Challenge News
Feb/March 2018 Lite Challenge : Map My World!
The new Lite Challenge is up and running. Bogie sez…
In January, Diamond & Chashio had a great idea to give you a map with nothing on it but names and you had to create the map around it. It was by far the most popular challenge any of us can remember.
For this Lite Challenge I want to flip it around. I am giving you the shape of the landmass and I have included green dots where the Cities, Towns, or main points of interest must be placed. You can remove the green dots and replace them with whatever symbols you wish to use, just be sure you have something at each of those 20+ locations.
You may add as many additional points of interest that you want in addition to the ones marked.
For those of you who draw your maps by hand, just try to replicate the basic land shape as closely as you can.
And in case you are interested this shape was originally a cloud.
For this Lite Challenge I want to flip it around. I am giving you the shape of the landmass and I have included green dots where the Cities, Towns, or main points of interest must be placed. You can remove the green dots and replace them with whatever symbols you wish to use, just be sure you have something at each of those 20+ locations.
You may add as many additional points of interest that you want in addition to the ones marked.
For those of you who draw your maps by hand, just try to replicate the basic land shape as closely as you can.
And in case you are interested this shape was originally a cloud.
You can check out the map Bogie’s using in the main thread. If you’ve any questions, ask them there. We’ve got a few strong contenders already. Check out all the entries in the challenge folder.
February 2018 Regular Challenge : Elevator Pitch Prophecies
There are on a couple of days left before February’s challenge ends, so finish up and submit your entries. Remember to use the ‘Latest WIP’ tag, or the thumbnail scraper won’t find your map (use the button on the toolbar in the comment box). Check out all the entries here.
Challenge Suggestions
A couple of dreamy challenge suggestions for your consideration…
Map a dream, suggested by Kelleri
My idea is pretty straightforward: map a place from a dream. It would of course be more fun if you were mapping something you've really seen in a dream, but since it's pretty hard to actually prove that, I guess you could just settle for making up a place that you see being 'dreamlike'.
Map Your Dream House, suggested by Daistallia
Pretty much what it says on the tin: from a little cabin in the woods to a stately mansion to a penthouse apartment to castles in the air to Hobbit holes - wherever you dream of living, map it. Show us a dream.
Five Threads to check out
The latest work-in-progress threads, interesting discussions, new tutorials etc etc. It's all here.
- Guild member aeshnidae, who has experience as a contract lawyer, has graciously shared some expertise in thread ‘Contracts 101 - Resource Guide for Artists’. If you do commission work, have a read through this thread.
- Dain has posted The Most Epic City Map, titled 'Laelith - isometric ... kind of WIP'. Absolute must-view thread.
- Jo updated ‘The old watch inn’ thread
- Vúrarada - Continent of Maelween, by Kitafox
- 3D island country map (Blender Freestyle), by Gozdom
Five Finished Maps
- North Atlantic Map by Sapiento
- Urrath, West of the Sands by ThomasR
- City map of Simiones by Tiphs
- The Five Kingdoms by Straf
- World of Dimentiara by Kalium
Around the web
Some links for your reading/viewing pleasure...
- Cute typography drawing trick
- 'A funny little map' from the Bodleian Map Room Blog
- Medieval Maps of Britain
- Misconceptions - Some Common Geographic Mental Misplacements
- The Case of the Disappearing Ships
- The adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the book by Mark Twain, via LOC
- The "Known World" from 2348 B.C. to A.D. 1828, in the Form of a Single GIF
- Pictorial railway maps - Mid-century maps telling stories
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