Planet Eben

[Lukc]

This is absolutely lovely. I can't say that often enough. I am inspired.

[ManOfSteel]

Thank you very much Lukc! I'm glad you're enjoying it.

impressive and solid work, you did a great job. The only thing are the continents which are spreaded a little too "draggy" on the planet and which are too similar in dimension and form in my oppinion, but this doesn´t reduce the good work and your excellent skills. Especially the political map and the satellite map are georgous.

randigpanzrall,

Thank you too for the compliments! You bring up an interesting point and that is how much control should a fantasy/science fiction cartographer exercise when dealing with sometimes random forces in geology and astronomy that take millions of years to play out? I don't know whether it is my imagination, but I oftentimes would decide to move a river or even a continent and it just looked wrong. Even though the original placement seemed awkward or the opposite, too even or symmetrical...it just felt right to leave it where it was. Therefore, once they were placed, I made a rule for myself...no moving of continents or rivers. It was more true to life to me. I even wanted to include other features, but as I said, they didn't "feel" right. If you'll notice, Eben has no great lakes like we do in North America. It has no major isthmi. It has no polar land masses, although that doesn't mean there weren't any in the past. It has few large peninsulas. Earth is extremely top heavy when it comes to the distribution of land, and with Eben, after placing the continents where I felt they should be, I found that it too was slightly top heavy, but not nearly to the extent that Earth is. I had the choice of making it assymetrical, or even perfectly even, but I left it that way. That's just the way it turned out. I wouldn't feel right changing things.

To tell you the truth, it was kind of fun and challenging to deal with the shapes and placements that resulted, just like we have to do in real life. I've often looked at Earth and thought that, if it were in my power, I'd get rid of Baja California. It looks weird. I'd move Antarctica and put it to good use. Canada has way too many islands. The straight of Gibraltar almost seems contrived. As I said, there's WAY too much land in the northern hemisphere. And Europe has way too many peninsulas compared with the other continents...I think I'd get rid of Scandinavia.

But there they are.

[randigpanzrall]

yes, you are not wrong at all. Your Planet formed in your head and so The result is the truth. And yes, even our earth would look Kind of unreal for someone who was Not born here. For example europe seems too small compared to the US Just keep on with your excellent work and I look forward For your works to come.

[ManOfSteel]

Someone asked me how many cities there were on the political map. Here is the breakdown.

COUNTRIES
36

CITIES
513

BAYS
105

LAKES
94

NAMED RIVERS
139

CAPES/POINTS
18

ISLANDS
237

OCEANS, SEAS, GULFS, & COASTS
35

DESERTS
14

INDIVIDUAL MOUNTAINS
19

MOUNTAIN RANGES (EXCLUDING HIGHLANDS, PLATEAUS, ETC.)
43

MAJOR WATERFALLS
8

[Tattimatonen]

Absolutely wonderful. I love how you actually took the time to do tectonic plates and all that jazz. I especially love the political map, and let's face it - I'm a sucker for inland seas. I'd also be very interested in information about the plants, animals and peoples of this world if you're willing to share.

[ManOfSteel]

Thank you for the compliments Tattimatonen!
I will see what I can do about making a few images and writing a bit of history.

[Rhotherian]

This is indeed very nice. The only thing that irks me it the poles of your tectonic map. Its a common mistake, but a lot of people seem to forget that planets are spherical when it comes to tectonic maps - plate boundaries should never go off the northern or southern edges of a world map (you will only ever see that on world maps of Earth where either the North Pole is cut out or the tectonographer was an idiot). Here's what I mean:
Bad Tectonics.png

[Nathalem]

Realy nice work ManofSteel
Go on with this kind of work....

[ManOfSteel]

Thanks for the observation Rhotherian. However the plate shapes are correct according to my design. I actually worked from a rough model and tried my best to transfer them to an equirectangular map. Most continents, plates, et al should indeed span the top or bottom of such a map, but because the plates had to fit and move in specific spaces and directions they were purposely truncated on the map to form specific shapes in 3D. It's virtually impossible for me to visualize from the map to a 3D object, so I drew those parts of the map from the 3D object. Below you'll see a shot of the 3D model I used to check the plates' size and orientation. Ideally I would have used a 3D program that allows you to paint directly onto an object and then generates a UV map.


What's really misleading is that the text and arrows get very distorted, but they're just there for reference on the 2D map. Interesting...my model's top resembles yours, but the bottom looks somewhat different.

[ManOfSteel]

Thank you Nathalem! I will.