Venus Practice Map [WIP]

[Humabout]

After really spending some time looking at everyone's work on here, especially Max's and SK's (I just love your maps), I've decided I really need to get more comfortable with GIMP and Inkscape. I've been posting bits and pieces I've done with Inkscape, as I've tinkered with it. GIMP has been another beast, though. So to that end, I started working through RobA's Creating an Artistic Map tutorial and thought I'd post my progress. For a base, I started with a map of the continents of Venus (because I'm a total geek, I like the shapes of the continents, and because I really beat myself up over landform shapes). I took that map and have since brought it to the point where I will begin putting in mountains. This is where I will likely depart from the height maps of Venus that I've found. I've also cleaned up a lot of the "islands" that litter its "oceans."

Original Map pulled from Google:
Venus.jpg

Current WIP:
Venus Map.jpg

Eventually, I'll probably turn this into a fantasy map so I can squeeze as much practice as I can from this tutorial. I may also end up making an actual map of Venus as if it had water, just for fun. I'd love any feedback anyone has.

[EDIT]
Here's another update with mountains and glaciation in the north. I'm not sure the icecap really fits the style of the rest.
Current WIP:
Venus 2.jpg

[Humabout]

I have decided to do two crazy things. First, I decided to see what I get if I make this into a map for a setting I'm working on. On that note, this map will be a world map for all intents and purposes, but the setting assumes something of a flat-earth. Second, I'm cranking this through the climate cookbook before placing rivers and forests and other geographic features. I am making a couple of assumptions:

1) The world has weather and climate effects as though the bottom of the map corresponds with the southern 30th parallel.
2) The world, were it round, has a 25 degree tilt, and it is otherwise similar to Earth.

I am making these assumptions so that the setting has relatively varied and believable climates and weather patterns. The inhabitants need not know why they exist. The world is "flat" so I can expand it as much as I desire, should it come up.

So with that in mind, here are some maps:

Currents:
Starfall - Currents.jpg

Summer Winds & Precipitation:
Starfall - Summer - Precipitation & Tradewinds.jpg

Summer Temperatures
Starfall - Summer - Temperature.jpg

Winter Winds & Precipitation
Starfall - Winter - Precipitation & Tradewinds.jpg

Winter Temperatures
Starfall - Winter - Temperature.jpg

[schattentanz]

At the moment, the polecaps are just blank; ice comes in hues of blue, however .. you might want to try to play with clouds coloured with a white-blue gradient here ..
Looking at your temperature maps leaves the impression of summer not being too different from winter .. Is that intentional? (It's the Venus after all ..)

Other than that: Very nice!

[arsheesh]

I love how well thought out this project is. Kudos Humabout!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Humabout]

At the moment, the polecaps are just blank; ice comes in hues of blue, however .. you might want to try to play with clouds coloured with a white-blue gradient here ..
Looking at your temperature maps leaves the impression of summer not being too different from winter .. Is that intentional? (It's the Venus after all ..)

Other than that: Very nice!

Thank you for the tip on the icecap. I am really at a loss for how to do ice on a map. I was tinkering with some random noise colored blue, but whenever I made it particularly blue, it looked really bad. It could be the shade I was using or the noise. I'll definitely try clouds.

The temperature maps were generated using the climate cookbook. The outcome wasn't intended any particular way, and I may still play with it more. It's built up with three layers of semi-transparent blues and reds based on different factors. I might try tinkering with it a bit more to see if I can get a better gradient happening. Maybe if I do a black and white gradient based on temperature on one layer. Copy that layer and do a color invert. Then color one layer red, the other blue and overlay them on each other? I'm really still learning my way around GIMP, so if anyone knows a better way, please speak up!

I love how well thought out this project is. Kudos Humabout!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Thank you! Eventually, I'll start working on coastlines of my own, but for now, this looks like a good way to get some practice without agonizing over the basic shapes. And with a little luck, I'll even get a game map out of it!

[Humabout]

Here's an update. I redid the precipitation maps with a more detailed hand. I think this better represents the actual precipitation patterns in summer and winter. I also found a way to get a better gradient and used a mask to restrict the colors to the land areas.

Winter Precipitation & Trade Winds
Starfall - Winter - Precipitation & Tradewinds.jpg

Summer Precipitation & Trade Winds
Starfall - Summer - Precipitation & Tradewinds.jpg

I'm going to work on those temperature maps next. I'll edit this post with them once they're complete.

[EDIT]
Something I have noticed is that because the majority of the land lies in the tropics, the weather tends to be pretty warm, in general. This is as opposed to Earth where most of the land is in the northern hemisphere and relatively little is actually in the tropics. On to working out climate zones.

Winter Temperatures
Starfall - Temperature - Winter.jpg

Summer Temperatures
Starfall - Temperature - Summer.jpg

[EDIT]
Slightly better icecap and a grid for reference:
Starfall - Grid.jpg