Been away for a while, not doing that much in terms of mapping, though I have been able to get this personal piece, detailing Elyden in a Molliweide projection, done. It’s from the point of view of the Parthisan Empire.

It’s very similar to the Stereographic map I keep on resurrecting every so often (but that never seems to get anywhere despite my occasional tinkering with it, adding labels as I slowly flesh out the world), though it’s much smaller (I’d say about a quarter of the total area of the stereographic map – by the demiurges, I struggled with manipulating this map, let alone that one!) and contains much fewer extraneous details. And its those details – treatises, short essays, physical data etc. – that are really time-consuming. Well, those and the labels! My drive for perfection with such things means that I cant just add a random label or just write gibberish for the text boxes – whatever I write needs to fit in with established timelines and regional histories.

As a case in point: take the text boxes I this recent map. There are three in all (not counting small key information scattered around the map detailing the individual images): one detailing the state of the world, another detailing recent Parthisan history and another listing all the Emperors elect since its formation as a Republic. I had to come up with all that information specifically for the map as Parthis is one of the regions for which I have written very little, and that threw a spanner in the workd for a while, though I think It adds a bit of reality to the map. Same with the National crest (made on the fly, though I’m still not 100% sold on it). The physical data beneath the National crest I had already calculated for the larger stereographic map so replicated there.

The map itself is not completely finished yet – I still have to add a few labels (many of the eastern and southern regions are not entirely fleshed out, so many nations are still sans capital cities, as you say, so I’ll need to concoct them specifically for the map – something I’m never too keen on doing as the languages for those regions haven’t been developed (or even thought of) yet and I don’t like naming areas that don’t have at least a basic language set in place (determining certain suffixes and prefixes, for instance). I also need to add a map key (kind of write myself in a corner with that as I have no idea where to add it – I might just have to remove some of the smaller text boxes to add the key) and some details (not sure what yet).

That brings me to something else – I’m never really happy with a map. I set out to make something that’s pseudo-realistic though always feel as if there’s something else I can add – a nicer neatline, more period-defining details and so on, though always stumble on such details. Grrr!

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