October 2015 Challenge: The Island in the Sea

[Chick]

A year ago, the Sept/Oct 2014 Lite Challange was to Map a Lake: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=28304

It was the third challenge I entered after I joined CG in July. My entry was called "The Inland Island Sea" and there is a story that went with it which can be found in the challenge thread The Inland Island Sea: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=28330

The final image is here: http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...chmentid=68427

The Inland Island Sea 14.jpg


It seems like a natural candidate for this challenge, so I'm going to swap land and water.

I've also wanted to do a real portolan style map with lots of rhumb lines and compass roses, so I'm changing the style a bit but keeping enough to make sure the maps are clearly connected.

So "The Inland Island Sea" will become "The Island in the Sea".

### Latest WIP ###
IslandInTheSea 04.jpg


I haven't decided yet whether to keep a straight edge to the paper or use those parchment scroll brushes I did for last month's challenge, but the rest of the map including the compass rose filled sea is my attempt to try out a new style that I haven't really done before.

Comments, suggestions, critique, and ideas always welcome!

Cheers,
Cornelia

[ChickPea]

Good choice to work on! Looking forward to seeing how you develop it.

[Francissimo]

The orginal map is really cool and fits well with this month theme, the shape of your land is already cool

[Chick]

Here is my next WIP. I've tried to keep all the same names from the original map, although I moved them around quite a bit. I'll be placing town dots and adjusting the name placements to fit.

The rivers are new, but the lakes were islands in the original map. I didn't keep all the islands/lakes, mostly because they were close to the coastline and didn't make as much sense as lakes there. Some of them I simply moved further inland.

Mountains are new, there were none on the original map, but I'm still working hard at making nice mountains, so every little excuse to practice helps. I've shaded one of the four mountain ranges, rest still to come, as well as the desert.

I would be very grateful for any comments, suggestions, ideas, or just plain criticisms.

### Latest WIP ###
IslandInTheSea 05.jpg

[snodsy]

Hi chick I'm currently doing a portolan map as well, a couple things I've read on it, very little if any decorative elements, although later portolan maps did add them, but there would be no mountains drawn, strictly coastline. Look forward to seeing this develop. Actually my bad, Italian portolan maps were void of interior details, while Catalan ones did have them, so yours would be a catalan stle

[Chick]

Hi chick I'm currently doing a portolan map as well, a couple things I've read on it, very little if any decorative elements, although later portolan maps did add them, but there would be no mountains drawn, strictly coastline. Look forward to seeing this develop. Actually my bad, Italian portolan maps were void of interior details, while Catalan ones did have them, so yours would be a catalan stle

Thanks for the tips, snodsy. I took a look at the map you are working on and it's really amazing! I probably should not have said "Portolan", just showing my ignorance. What I really wanted to try out was the ocean background of many navigation or rhumb lines or compass roses filling the ocean spaces. I really owe a credit pointer to Diamond's super use of this as my inspiration to try it. Making the compass roses was about the hardest part of the map, even though it looked like it would be simple. Once I got the basic lines structure looking ok, it took forever to get them into a semi-attractive array without too many awkward overlaps and intersections. Gave me a lot more respect for Diamond's skills

[Chick]

This is just about finished now, unless someone can point out some stupidity I overlooked. I decided to stick with the original (Inland Island Sea) map's border, modified to fit this map, since it was consistent with the cartouche.

### Latest WIP ###
IslandInTheSea 07.jpg

Comments and critiques very welcome!

[Francissimo]

the compass and ships in the sea really adds to the overhaul atmosphere, really cool map

[Chick]

Thanks so much, Francissimo!

I decided I didn't like the border, a little too yellow for the rest of the map, so I made it more consistent brown.

### Latest WIP ###
IslandInTheSea 08.jpg

[ChickPea]

This has turned out really well. I like the monochrome feel of it, and the decorative elements make it very pretty.