Meridian Islands [WIP]
This is some very early WIP of my Meridian Islands work. But first, some history as to how it came about...
In my childhood years (we're talking about 25 years ago) my brother and neighbours would play backyard cricket and name the various grounds / stadiums we would play at. During my teenage years, I began playing Civilization and Sim City, and began to imagine the cities and country the grounds would be in.
As luck would have it, I dug up an old sketch from way back and thought I'd start to give it more thought. What began as 'Pacifica' somewhere in the southern hemisphere in the Pacific Ocean has morphed into the Meridian Islands (so named due to their approximate location on the ancient line of meridian), around 30'S 20'W in the Atlantic Ocean. Currently there is one main island and two additional, but envisage more being created.
These two images show an initial sketch undertaken a few weeks ago and an updated GIMP version (which I've subsequently printed and continued to draw on by hand (emerging cities / regions; history; more rivers etc.) Both have a scale of 1:5,000,000. I have to give a big shout out to Gidde's 'Hand Drawn Mapping' tutorial. Managed to get most of it going (excl. labels and coastal shading) but still fairly basic. Did this hand-drawn version to get the use of GIMP, having not used it or PS before.
Next steps are a more detailed coastline, some work on the rivers and some mountain topography. In the meantime, feel free to comment.
01_Meridian_Hand drawn.jpg
02_Meridian_GIMP v1_HD style.png
03_Meridian_GIMP printed.jpg
G'day Mat, Welcome to the guild and nice map WIPs. Its cool to see that in your initial map your rivers fork going towards the sea but you have corrected this in your subsequent maps. Thats good progress already ! We have the tongue in cheek "River Police" with their badge on the left side who may otherwise pull you over and issue a stern warning !!! 'Tis such a common error for those wanting realistic rivers that it became a trope.
Cheers Redrobes! Yes, I noted with amusement the "How to get your rivers in the right place" tutorial, though did find it very impressive and informative. Do hope I'm sticking with the protocols of nature in this regard.
Have developed a bit - focus has been more realistic coastlines, rivers and a bit of work on the mountains. Found the tutorial on fantasticmaps.com regarding 'top down' mountains very useful for the mountains; whilst I went a little off on my own way I'm quite happy with how they're progressing for a first attempt. This visualisation is also helping with the placement of river sources.
Anywho, here is an updated imaged with the above included. Will continue with mountain ranges and hills.
04_Meridian_GIMP v2.png
Look forward to more feedback and advice.
Cheers
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