Wanenjo & Henterra

[Thurlor]

After some consideration I have decided to finish my map of Wanenjo that was my entry for the July/August 2012 Lite Challenge. link

Combined with it is my first attempt at a city map (only in the planning stages so far). I decided I'd try and map the Wanenjan capital Henterra.

I have yet to decide whether or not I will stick with the limited colour palette for the finished product. Either way I will try and use the same colours for each map.

After the challenge had closed I was looking over my map and realised that the scale I had was...problematic. I didn't want to redo my grid, so I re-scaled the entire planet. It now has a circumference of 76,926km (almost twice earth's). This leads to a distance of 35.614km per 10min arc.

Scale is my biggest issue with the city map. I'm going with 200x zoom increase on the Wanenjo map. This gives me a map of 3.72km at 5000 pixels. I think I will have to change the size as currently it is 1m = 1.34 pixels (which is okay in vector but not raster).

Regarding scale. Should city features like walls, roads and bridges be shown to scale (width wise)?

Wanenjo
Wanenjo 011.jpg

Henterra
Henterra - 002.png

[Korash]

Glad to see this continuing

As far as the city scale goes, it would depend on the style of the map. If you are going full-to-scale and no abstracts, I would have to say "yes". However, I would say that a LITTLE exageration for the sake of clarity should be allowed. The problem with exageratiing the roads themselves is that they will have a tendancy to throw off the scale of the buildings as those that face the road will have one dimention shortened...City walls can always be exagerated outwards and have a very minimal effect on the rest of the city, bridges a little less so, but doable with care, but I wouldn't do the roads. In a true full-to-scale map.

[Tigon]

Great to see this one taken further Mr T.

As regards the scale, you can go with a number of options and get a good result. You could even emulate the Google Maps look at the equivalent resolution you're looking to produce. I suppose it depends upon the kind of feel you want from the map and the technological era it's looking to be made in. I'd say that the larger island map would put it in something of a technological age, given the apparent accuracy of the surveying.

Ah, and the gate has disappeared but a city/town has sprung up nearby! Hell of a road to get up to that place... I'll take a plane please!

[Thurlor]

Okay, I've decided that the final export resolution will be 2 pixels per metre. This will result in a map slightly smaller than 7500x7500 pixels (iirc). Hopefully this won't be considered too big.

@Korash
I've decided to go with a non-exaggerated scale (except for the walls maybe).

@Tigon
I was considering a technological level that would roughly be the equivalent of late 18th, early 19th century England based on magic instead of tech. The high level of detail is explained in the 'copyright info' on the map. Basically, it is a magically 'printed' map using information obtained from scrying. Now that I have more time to work on this I'm going to be trying out multiple looks in an attempt to find something that doesn't look so modern, yet still retains the same level of detail.
Actually, I forgot to include the Travel Arches. I'm trying to find a better way of depicting the working Arch as opposed to all the other Arches which fall into two categories (receiving and completely dead).

[Tigon]

The scale may be a bit different but a Victorian look for my neck of the woods:

A couple more links (to Caledonian Maps) as well:
http://www.caledonianmaps.co.uk/edinburgh.gif
http://www.caledonianmaps.co.uk/edinburgh_mid.jpg
http://www.caledonianmaps.co.uk/OS_zoom_zoom.gif

John Tallis' maps of the time (mid 19th Century) are also very nice and may be up your street if you fancy ornamenting the periphery with a few pictorial representations of key monuments/buildings.

I like the steampunk+magic mix to the world and am minded of Harry Turtledove's The Case Of The Toxic Spell Dumpin which the favoured mode of transport was the flying carpet.