Draw a map on Mars

[Mouse]

This idea was inspired by two beautiful maps drawn by Ilanthar and Francissimo at the same time, and currently still in progress right now.

The idea is this: What if the CL who moderates the challenge were to choose a carefully selected area of Mars topography, and the participants were asked to draw a map on it. (not sure where to get the data from, or if any of it allows us to do this 'en masse' this way as part of a challenge?)

Providing we could find a source that allows us to use the data this way, it could be any kind of map - a dungeon, an underworld, a villge/town/city, a lush green living Mars map, a desert map of Earth as it would appear in a parallel universe where Earth had little or no water and no moon to protect it from the asteroids... anything you like

Please vote - yes or no. Thanks

[Wired]

I'd be in.

[Francissimo]

Great idea Mars is a really cool planet for mapping! there's a lot of cool topography data available, and the way water carved the relief makes painting rivers on it really fun.

[Mouse]

I must admit I would love to have a small section of one of the oceans in a corner of the map. I have an image in my mind of how Martian seaweed might have made the oceans look quite different - there being less shielding from the harmful radiation of our sun with a smaller planet and a thinner atmosphere, purple and red (anthocyanin in place of chlorophyll) might have been more common than green

Maybe it would be a good idea for a relatively large area to be picked, so that entrants could choose to do either the whole area, or just a small part of it? I'm thinking here of the dungeon mappers.

EDIT: OMGosh I'm tired! What I meant to say was the plants on the land would probably have been purple and red, while those in the shallow waters might have been green, since the water shields anything under it from the sun's radiation far better than an atmosphere. That would be an interesting reversal of colours to map

[Wired]

Mars offers such a wide variety of mapping approaches that I'd be really happy to participate in a challenge for once.

A long time ago I did this here for a Mars in the middle of terraforming.

mars_crater_by_stratomunchkin-d660rur.png

[Diamond]

This idea could probably be mined for both the Light and regular challenges - maybe for the light challenge participants could do just a 'map that has something to do with Mars', and for the regular challenge, we CLs could go with Mouse's suggestion of picking out a specific section of Martian topography to use.

[Ilanthar]

No surprise, but I like the idea. There are so many interesting places on Mars that I kinda prefer if everyone can pick his favorite region.

@Diamond : yup, we could do a thematic month... maybe in March ?
@Wired : very nice render!

[Mouse]

Your the boss... es (Ilanthar and Diamond)

Now I've thought about it, it probably would be a better idea to let people pick their own