WIP World Map

[Arimel]

Hello,

I am currently beginning to create a fantasy world map and thought to share the process via this thread so I can get feedback along the way.

My plans so far for this world map include:
-Coming up with an appropriate name that I feel fits so I can rename this thread later (if that is possible)
-Drawing the map in regions (which will result in many smaller maps that interconnect)
-Trying to place landforms/terrain in as close to natural positions as I can
-Creating a 'terrain tablet', basically meaning a standardized method of drawing each of the different terrains I will include so that the entire map is drawn in a similar style.

Current Numbers for the map:
World Radius: 10,219 km (approximately 1.6 times larger than earth)
World Circumference: ~64,207 km
Scale: 1 cm = 150 km
Number of A4 pages needed to hand-draw: a lot

Continents: 13 (3 island continents, 2 sets of 4 interconnected continents, another set of 2 connected continents)
Major island chains: 5 (though they may overlap at points)

The order I plan to go about doing this is:
1. Creating the terrain tablet
2. Creating a miniature version of the map showing each of the continents & island chains
3. On the mini-map create the plate tectonics, current pattern (air & water), climate patterns, major areas that I plan to have civilisations etc.
4. Begin mapping the regions
5. (occurs throughout) listen to your feedback

This project will take an enormous amount of time and, as such, it will almost certainly not be one continuous work. I will almost certainly work on other maps between finishing some of the stages mentioned above.


Also, should I have posted this in the wrong area I would appreciate it if someone moved it to the correct area.

Arimel

[Hawksguard]

Welcome!

Looks like you have a good start on what you want your world to be like.

Sounds like you are taking a scientific approach to world building, one that I myself have always strived toward. If you already have an idea of where your continents and islands are going to go, you may find some difficulty in resolving the underlying plate tectonics. So you might want to try some quick sketches of the plate boundaries first. There is nothing more frustrating than having a beautiful arrangement of land masses only to realize that geologically there is no way for them to exist (as far as we understand the science, anyway).

Also, I think in your "current numbers" you meant kilometers instead of miles? 10,219 km is roughly 1.6 times Earth's radius of 6,371 km. If you actually meant miles, with a radius of 10,219 miles that would make your planet have a surface area of roughly 1,310,000,000 km2, which is over 6 and half times that of Earth. That's a lot of A4 pages to hand-draw.

Good luck!

[Arimel]

Welcome!

Looks like you have a good start on what you want your world to be like.

Sounds like you are taking a scientific approach to world building, one that I myself have always strived toward. If you already have an idea of where your continents and islands are going to go, you may find some difficulty in resolving the underlying plate tectonics. So you might want to try some quick sketches of the plate boundaries first. There is nothing more frustrating than having a beautiful arrangement of land masses only to realize that geologically there is no way for them to exist (as far as we understand the science, anyway).

Also, I think in your "current numbers" you meant kilometers instead of miles? 10,219 km is roughly 1.6 times Earth's radius of 6,371 km. If you actually meant miles, with a radius of 10,219 miles that would make your planet have a surface area of roughly 1,310,000,000 km2, which is over 6 and half times that of Earth. That's a lot of A4 pages to hand-draw.

Good luck!

Halksguard,
As of yet I have not placed the continents, island groups, or anything. Those numbers are not set in stone but more just a quantity that I deem appropriate now. Part of the reason I even started a WIP thread instead of just beginning on my own was so that I could get feedback on whether or not the plate tectonics was done correctly before I got too far. Although I have been researching them I wouldnt call myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination.

Also, thanks for catching my error with the numbers. I did all of my calculations in km but wrote miles next to the final answer. I hope this wont be a theme in the mapping to follow!
Arimel

[Arimel]

Step 1: Creating the Terrain Tablet

I have now begun this process (actually I have been researching for a while but have now started drawing). I have decided that the terrains and icons that I would like to prepare for this projects are:

-A coast style that is easily adaptable to many situations (both small lakes & large oceans)
-An ocean texture for areas that are especially empty. I am not sure if I will draw something that will turn out nice in black and white so this one may be skipped later.
-Bluffs/cliffs both on coasts and on land.
-Gorges/canyons
-Fjords. I have very few ideas at the moment on how I could accomplish this one. I have a feeling I will be using google earth to scout the Norwegian fjords for a while.
-Reefs, both coral & other. For this one I might need a different texture for the different types. Again I am unsure so this one may be dropped
later.
-Deserts. While this includes the commonly seen sand deserts, I would also want to be able to depict a difference between sand, bedrock, pebble, and badlands deserts.
Forests: For this one I am being rather ambitious so this may also be difficult. I would like textures for jungles/rain forests, deciduous forests, taiga forests (coniferous), shrub lands/Mediterranean terrain, and finally, small copses of trees. As I said, a lot of types.
-Glaciers. I have never seen a map that was not in color that gave a really nice looking glacier so I am setting that challenge for myself. Also, I would like to be able to draw glacial cave entrances in glaciers. There are a few other glacier related land forms I would also like to include.
-Icebergs
-Grasslands: I would like to include slight differences for prairie, savannah, and steppe grasslands (though steppe & prairie are basically the same thing I think)
-Plateaus and Mesas
-Mountains, including a way to make a mountain pass more visible without necessarily needing to label it as a pass.
-Hills & domes. These will be tricky because I want to find a way to draw these under the textures of forests & grasslands. I am not sure if this will be possible but I will give it a shot.
-Archipelagos: Just finding a way to draw an appropriate amount of islands & working the coastal lines around them.
-Tundra: Again, I have not seen a really good depiction of this and would like to create a style that fits to me.
-River Delta
-A few various rock formations
-Swamps, marshes, bayous, & bogs: There are slight differences between these 4 that I would like to be apparent on the map
-Last of all, volcanic features, including geysers, volcanoes, & lava fields.
-Later I have plans for different types of structures but those can wait for now...

That is the list. It will take me a while to complete so I will post images of a few of the features as I finish them. Although I am probably overdoing my preparation in this it is a step that I would like to complete to feel more secure later.

Should anyone have any ideas of features I may have missed please let me know!

[Azélor]

A few things you should also consider before getting knee deep in the drawing process.

What map projection are you using?
This is black and white with pen and paper or software? not an issue but I'm just wondering.
What perspective to use? Isometric or top down? Isometric might be harder depending on the level of details you are looking for. Erwin Raisz is a good inspiration as he does almost any kind of landscape.

[Arimel]

A few things you should also consider before getting knee deep in the drawing process.

What map projection are you using?
This is black and white with pen and paper or software? not an issue but I'm just wondering.
What perspective to use? Isometric or top down? Isometric might be harder depending on the level of details you are looking for. Erwin Raisz is a good inspiration as he does almost any kind of landscape.

So I will be doing the map with pen & paper. This may make it difficult to link the pages together later but it is the way I am currently comfortable with. Also, I am probably going to use an isometric-esk style. Generally speaking, I do not really like the way top down maps look and although the geometric style does not hold the same level of detail I judge the trade off of preciseness for appearance to be worth it. Finally, from the image I could find of Erwin Raisz's work, his maps are way beyond my skill sets and also more detailed than mine will probably be. Thanks for telling me of him though because I had never heard of him before and will certainly try to find more of his maps.

[persona-non-sequitur]

So I will be doing the map with pen & paper. This may make it difficult to link the pages together later but it is the way I am currently comfortable with.

Have you considered using poster-board? Depending on where you live, you can get cheap 22" x 28" pieces at the dollar store; art supply stores might carry bigger sizes in better quality paper - I know my local Michael's carries 20"x30'' sheets of art-quality paper that aren't too expensive.

[Azélor]

You are setting the bar pretty high but it's going to be interesting how you will represent all these different elements. Check some of the posts from Elterio Delgard, he is working on a similar project.

Search for a blog fantastic map, it's made by one of our member, torstan. It has a lot of tip to draw different element. There is also a thread here but I think the content is similar https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=16819

[Azélor]

Some thoughts

Reefs are rarely depicted on maps, maybe it's because they are underwater. I'm curious to see what you will do.
Dunes deserts are not the most common type. The other can be done by having sand, gravier, pebble, or rocks.

Forests is not as hard as depicting all those different landscapes (canyon, fjord, mesa...)
The jungle has these palm like trees to differentiate itself from the deciduous forest. 2 examples:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...4&d=1503032554
https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...0&d=1511980994

The deciduous forest is simpler.
Then there is the mixed forest where deciduous trees are gradually replaced by conifers.
Coniferous forest are triangle shaped with the edges rounded. I find it better looking when the trunk is short, same is true for deciduous trees. It's mostly a matter of personal taste because in reality, most trees in forest have tall and somewhat thin trunk.
Then Taiga. I make a difference between the taiga and the coniferous forest sometimes called boreal probably because I'm Canadian and I know this biome. Basically, the boreal forest has a dense canopy that gradually open as you move closer to the poles. Trees become smaller and sparse and the by the time you get to the tundra, the trees are barely higher than the grass surrounding them in summer.

The tundra is a very diverse biome. The permafrost area is home to many different landscapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permafrost
Lakes, hill like structure, grass in summer, rock covered in lichen and some bushes.
Mediterranean biome, I consider it very similar to a savanna or a scrubland. Trees are smaller, further apart and it is also a transition to a steppe and then to desert.

Grasslands. The difference prairie and steppe is apparently the length of the grass which is shorter on a steppe. The other explanation I see is that a prairie might be the more specific name we give to the steppes of North America.

Hills. I see four solutions.

1. The first and most obvious is not to do anything specific and just map a regular forest. The reason I'm saying this is because the hills are the last place people will go to cut wood or farm. Zhejiang, China has 55 million people on an area 1/5 the size of France. Yet 80% of the area is covered with forests because there are a lot of hills. And by that logic, if a rather large area is covered with forest in a settled area, we can guess what the landscape is like. It's the lazy solution.
2. Assuming the hill is large enough, you can deliberately leave empty space on the hill so we can still see it's there. Steep slopes are unlikely to harbor a lot of plants anyway.
3. Draw the tress at the limit of the hill differently. Maybe have a slightly thicker line. The problem with this with an isometric projection is that unless the hill is pretty steep, you have other trees on the hill and you might not be able to have a clear demarcation.
4. Use shadows. If the angle is high enough, the top of the hill will cast a shadow on all the surrounding trees in a specific direction.

Other biomes idea:
Bamboo forest: I'm not sure how common this is. I know it is a common plant in the tropics but I'm not sure there are a lot of forest made mostly of bamboo.
Redwood forest. Tall conifer forest found mostly in Northern California. I think conifer forest are common at this latitude on the west coasts.
Mangrove. Basically it's like a tropical/subtropical forest on the coasts on a river delta, flooded by salt water. They have a lot of roots. Some species grow in a strange way in that the roots grow from the branches toward the ground.

[Arimel]

Thanks for all of the posts and support so far. In answer to them:

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persona-non-sequitur

I did consider using posterboard/paper. I have turned away from it due to the same reasons I wanted to use it, the size. I do not have easy access to a scanner, let alone one large enough to scan a piece of paper of that size. Also, the cameras I have access to (computer & ipad) would not be able to get an image of a map that i would be happy with (they would have shadows & strange lighting as well as a loss of the details).

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Azelor
In response to your first post:
I would like to start by changing my answer slightly. First of all, thanks for telling me about Erwin Raisz. Although I could only find one of his maps when I searched the internet, my library contained one of his books (General Cartography). It may have been published in 1938 and, at least from how difficult it was to retrieve, never been borrowed before, but it has been a treasure trove in helping me to formulate my ideas for this. On the matter of projection, I will be following a geometric-esk style, trying to show the different terrains in a slightly 3D style and with shading. This will then be laid on a Echert IV projection. This style does not seem to overly warp the map and seems possible to draw/design by hand. It is also a style I am familiar with.
In response to your second post:
I will certainly keep an eye on Elterio Delgard's thread, though it seems to follow a different type of terrain style than I am going for. As for the fantastic maps blog and torstan's post, I had seen both before and they contain several different posts that I have used for inspiration before, and will probably use again for this map.
In response to your third post:
Thank you for all of the help in this section. Some of it I had picked up on in my research but several of the points I had not (ex. tundras contained so many sub-types of terrains). Also, your ideas for hills are very helpful. I think I will go with the third or fourth point (i had never thought of using shading for hills like this before) but I will need to test them first and see if I can make them look good.
The other terrain suggestions are also useful. I think that it would make sense to have a different symbol for redwood forests since they have a rather large height difference to other types of forests. The bamboo forest is another cool idea that I will certainly try to incorporate. As for the mangrove, I probably will group them together with a bayou symbol. Based on what I've read, the
general terrain does not seem that different, just the trees it would contain. I very well could be incorrect here so please do correct me if I am wrong.
I do have one question from the post though. You mentioned there was a difference between coniferous & taiga terrains. From what you said boreal/coniferous forests are dense, but slowly get more sparse & short as one nears the tundra/poles. In this case, what would the taiga biome be? I envisioned this being what happened to both types of forests.

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Also, I will probably (hopefully) be able to upload my first set of terrains this weekend for criticism.