Mapvember 2018

[Voolf]

By the way. I forgot to ask Thomas

You can also do what John does, work on (larger) thumbnails that'll be seeds for future maps (and great for your Patreon !).

I am not sure what you are talking about here

[ThomasR]

He often draws tiny maps giving the general impression of what he'll do later at a larger scale. Check his WIPs for some examples or his sketch threads.

[ChickPea]

To be honest. Forget about Mapvember being part of the CG challange. It is not frankly and i don't think it is in CG CL interest and power to make changes to it. (correct me if i am wrong here).
You can of course make new challange that is based on Mapvember, but make it less painful. Probably less maps per month.
For me the monthly challanges and community project are really the thing, that makes CG stand out.
I particularly has most fun on communities projects, bookmarks especially !

Yeah, Mapvember is Miska's thing and I wouldn't try to step on that. But I was half wondering about doing something else (Mapril or whatever?)

I had an idea before that I thought might be kinda fun, and you could do it over a month or over a year (the year would be my preferred option). A lot of reading groups have a 'Book Bingo' event where you have to read books on certain themes and then cross off your 'bingo card' (see here for some examples). I wondered about trying the same with maps. The CL's would create the mapping bingo card with the prompts, then everyone can work on them over whatever length of time is decided. It's pretty much Mapvember just dressed up a bit differently, but it could be quite fun.

I agree with Voolf that the challenges and group projects that we do are one of the best things about the Guild. Everyone seems to enjoy them and wants to take part, so I was trying to think of something new that might engage the community (especially as it's been relatively quiet around here over the past few weeks), and I wanted some thoughts on how people felt about the Mapvember concept, even if the actual Mapvember 2018 isn't an option for them.

Of course, if anyone has other group project ideas, I'm happy to hear them!

[Greg]

I like the idea of Mapvember, but last year I got so far behind with doing a map a day it was crazy! If I were to follow Miska this year, I'd have to keep everything to a minimum, which could be a great practice anyway.

Bingo idea's a novel one. Could be pretty fun if enough people were on board! I guess maybe a CL would "stamp your bingo card" each time you posted a map that was relevant. I don't think it should be a race to finish, but perhaps there could be a special compass award or something for those who've completed it. It would probably be good to have some sort of time scale on it, but how long I've no idea (maybe 16 maps across a year or something?). I've regrettably not been on here much in the last year, but something like that I'd hope would keep me at least popping by more often.

[ChickPea]

I think my general feeling was not to go too high, if we did it over a year. Maybe ten maps or something like that? I wouldn't want it to be so many that it stopped people entering the regular challenges because they were doing this instead, or they decided not to take part at all because they were doing commissions and couldn't possibly manage 16 maps too. However, it's open to discussion. I think it might be one of those things that you have to try it once and see how it goes. An award for finishing could be nice, but I'm not so sure about an award for finishing first. If we were to do it over a year, I'd like it to be a thing that someone joining the Guild partway through the year could still participate without feeling like they 'missed the boat'.

[ThomasR]

Love the idea CP !

[Voolf]

First it is good to think what do you want it to be. A challange or a project?

If challange, then i guess it suppose to have a time constraint. It should be challanging after all. You just have to find good balance to make it fun also. Monthly challanges are good examples here.

Projects tend to be more flexible. Being open all the time allows more poeple to participate. The downside of no time limit is that people get lazy and just abandon projects. Especially if it's a big one or if you give them too much time to do it.

Personaly i like small projects or fast challanges. The ones that before you start, you can see the finish line already in your mind. It keeps you focused, because you know you can make it without sacrificing much time or effort.

The idea with the bingo map card is not bad, but i would see it rather as a monthly challange with 4-6 maps, than a year endeavour. Most people will be excited at the beginning, but after half year i think most of them will lost their zeal.

[J.Edward]

last year I wasn't really able to manage a full mapvember, but it did prompt me to do a good number of little maps.
Chashio got me doing little five minute map sketches, which was incredibly helpful for something like Mapvember.
Set a timer for 1,2,3, or 5 minutes... then see how much map you can sketch in that time.
Do that over and over and you'll have a ton of little map sketches.
Then you can take those and do 10 minute detail sessions.
Then later you can do 20-30 minute color sessions.

It's a great way to explore a bunch of different map looks and directions.
Even better if you can do that with a friend. Chashio and I have done that over phone and chat at different times.

I'll probably do some maps for it this year too, though limited due to work schedule, which has been crazy this year.

As to bingo... maybe they could be like 4 maps in a month with a theme or that are somehow connected.
Or 6 maps in 2 months that relate to prompts or something.
So short/quick, but still challenging and with some set guidelines....

I know that I have been thinking about what we might do for the community project for the coming year.
As we have been doing one each year around march/april... but that might conflict with atlas awards, so maybe earlier.
Bogie's Hogwarts challenge the other month got me thinking... Guild Mapgwarts school map or something like that, maybe. idk.
Just something I was thinking about when chatting with Beee the other day. It'd be fun to come up with the different houses and backstory and all.
And all that was totally not mapvember related....

Edit - Voolf, for my other map sketching... this was last year Mapvember
And here's the 5 minute map thing in practice - https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...l=1#post338097

[Falconius]

I just wanted to chime in and say I like the bingo idea a fair bit as a guild alternate to mapvemeber.

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As an aside the Bingo idea could also be implemented in an other way for a single months challenge providing there was a way to randomize the bingo cards. Each entry would be a map feature like an "underground entrance" or "a lake" etc. and then a person would generate their card and create a map using a set of five features/components that would create a bingo on the card to make their map. Or indeed one doesn't even have to randomly generate them, a CL could make 2 or 3 different cards and just assign them to participants. Maybe make different themes like a bingo card for future maps or fantasy maps or perhaps scales like a bingo card for town maps or regional maps? (it could be a lot of work though).

[Gidde]

That's actually a really cool idea, Falconius!