A harbor city

[magicalbookworm]

I thought I'd post a project I just started. I've been working on a new novel and the more I wrote, the more I realized I really needed a map of the city the novel takes place in. So here is the rough rough start of the city.

Started in Word. I'll finish it in Paint.


And the picture is kinda huge. hmm

[mearrin69]

It's a good start. Streets are maybe a bit regular but that's, of course, up to your builders. Paint? Brrrr...good luck!
M

[magicalbookworm]

I was worried about the streets. but I think they'll work just fine. There the "main' streets of the city. I won't add in any of the smaller streets. The more i work on the city though, I'm wondering if it might be easier to print it out and add in the buildings by hand.

[mearrin69]

That could work. I'd think the regularity of the lines on your print-out would clash somewhat with the hand-drawn lines you make for your building. What about printing it, overlaying it with a blank sheet, and then redrawing (tracing) your lines onto the new sheet and adding buildings? That way your map would have consistent line-quality throughout. Plus your map would be "hand drawn", which gets you much love (and REP!) around here. I started out my big city in PS and eventually just drew it out by hand...it was easier that way for some reason.

I wouldn't want to do it in Paint, but Illustrator (or Inkscape, a free alternative) is great for creating building shapes and rotating them into place in your map.
M

[magicalbookworm]

I've done just that! Printed it out the other day and drew it on a large sheet of paper. So I can add in farm land and such. I've also redrawn the city streets. They aren't so straight now. Now it's a mater of adding in buidlings and then deciding how to lable the map. I'll have to post a picture soon

[mearrin69]

Looking forward to it!
M

[Seraphine_Harmonium]

It's surprising how much you can do with Paint if you try, but I find that it's generally not worth it. Free programs like GIMP and Paint.NET (and Inkscape, as mearrin mentioned) make your life much easier, and have the advantage of being free. There's a bit of a learning curve, but nothing that can't be overcome by easy-to-come-by tutorials and a bit of experimentation.

[JPIKE]

Campaign Cartographer 3 has a City Designer. I've used it a little bit and it seems pretty good but that would run you like 80 bucks.

[Clercon]

Campaign Cartographer 3 has a City Designer. I've used it a little bit and it seems pretty good but that would run you like 80 bucks.

I've used City Designer 3 quite a lot and it is a very powerful and good tool when it comes to design cities. 80 $ is quite a lot of money but you also get CC3 which let you design overland maps.