August Entry: Oten'jo WidowMakers [dropped out]

[WidowMakers]

WOW. All I can say is that this is really hard. I knew that making these maps would be difficult. Obviously not everyone can do this and it takes lots of time. Well I figured that with my years of CC map making and Photoshop, I would be ok. And by OK I mean that I would be able to make a map that looks ok but basically gets the idea finished. BUT……WOW. I don’t know where to start. Planning this city is really something different. I don’t know where to start. I look over all the pics and get an idea in my head then….. NOTHING. I can’t figure out what to do. So I read through the rules again and find a word I have never heard, wharfage. I assume it is the docks and such since it is located on the river but I never expected to learn new words too. lol

Well back to my city map. I am sure it has taken me about 5X longer than it should but I am still a noob. Now that I look back (2 days) and rethink the idea, I probably should not have started out my CG journey by entering a very hard city building contest (and from some of the stuff I have read, the hardest type of map to make)


Here are my ideas about the map as I started it:

1) During my reading of many of the tutorials on the site, river front cities are normally long and built close to the river. But when I tried to do that, the city layout was not close enough to the desires look of the contest rules. So I decided to go landscape orientation. Should I have kept going with the first edition and reworked the city to look different (as long as the requirements were met) or was it good to keep the initial layout (landscape). Can I arrange the city HOWEVER I want as long as it is close and has the numbers of people and places are close?
2) I decided to make the canals in the city slope gradually with the river flow direction. That way the water would tend to flow with the river and make it easier for boats to traverse them. Does this make sense? Should I be thinking this technically when making maps?

Here are some issues I encountered:

1) I have no clue how to make docks. I did not think it would be that hard but I feel mine just look wrong (based on other maps I have looked over)
2) How do people go about making cities and streets to scale? I think that is the hardest thing for me. Knowing how big a building should be compared to the overall map since I have never done a city.

But here it is. Please let me know what you think and what I can do better (within reason). Please be brutal (to the map not me )

### Latest WIP ###