Kingdoms of the Eduri Isles (Formerly Eduri Island)

[Greason Wolfe]

Kingdoms of the Eduri Isles (Formerly Eduri Island)

So I had a bit of time this morning, and decided to get started on this project. I won’t go into some long-winded discussion about why I wasn’t able to finish it before the challenge deadline. Suffice it to say that between work and a lack of a real focus for the end product, I had a hard time getting out of the blocks, so to speak. I have a solid focus and a clear vision of what I want to do with this map now, and hope to make steady, albeit probably slow, progress to a finished project.

This early render doesn’t show much, and is mostly for the purposes of solidifying the way things will be laid out. I’m going to use all four island shapes this time round, though the shapes may change to some extent. Or rather the land masses, will probably change to some extent (I intend to chop them up a little bit in some places). The basic shapes shouldn’t be changed much, and should still be easily recognizable.

For those that are interested, there is a specific source of inspiration for this version of the map. Ironically, it is that very source of inspiration that interfered with my focus during the challenge. As I mentioned in another thread, I’ve been reading a lot of classic fiction lately, mostly Sci-Fi and Urban Fantasy. By and far, my favorite Urban Fantasy author is Charles de Lint. While it would be fair to say that most of his work might be categorized as Urban Fantasy, he does write pure Fantasy from time to time, and one of those pure Fantasy novels is titled Into the Green. As it happens, my copy of that novel includes a map at the front of the book. I don’t know who it was drawn by, but I really like the way it was arranged with both large islands and several groups of smaller islands arranged in an archipelago fashion. I’m hoping to capture something similar with this map. But we’ll see how it goes.

For now, here is a generalized sample of how things will be laid out.

Eduri Isles WIP 001.jpg

And now a curious question for my fellow cartographers regarding distance scales.

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve included some gridwork in this render. Looking down from top-dead-center, the blocks are equilateral squares representing a 25 by 25 mile area. However, because I’m rendering this with a bit of a perspective view instead of from top-dead-center, the gridwork gets distorted as it moves towards the “northern” portion of the map, but still represent the same area. So my question is; How do I best represent distances on the map given this distortion? Should I include multiple distance scales (which I would think might be confusing), or go with an “average” distance scale and disregard the distortion? I’d be interested to hear how anyone else has handled this situation.

[J.Edward]

This is the inherent quandary when doing a map in perspective rather than say, isometric view.
In a true iso view the distances would stay the same but you would get the feel of perspective, mostly.
In truth, with a true perspective map you can't accurately state distance, as it is variable.
You could say a square represents 25 miles and someone could technically make a measurement.
Let's just say it would be a lot more complicated.
It's usually better to force an iso grid in there.

[Greason Wolfe]

Doh! Got too many things going on at once and I completely forgot about this project. And a good point. I was kind of thinking along those lines but just wasn't really sure which (iso or perspective) way to go with the grid. Your suggestions are giving me a better idea of how to proceed. Thanks.