Hi there!
Hi all!
I'm Louise, and I'm a map enthusiast, in that I love looking at and reading about maps! I have drawn up some basic maps for pet projects of my own before, both digitally and hand-drawn. My last few maps, I've draw up using Photoshop, but I'm experimenting with Manga Studio to see how that compares from an illustrative perspective.
I love worldbuilding, particularly from a geographical perspective, but I would love to develop my ethnography and demographic layers to worldbuilding- which tie in strongly with maps! I honestly didn't know this forum existed until I read a post on Medium (GoT is all wrong?) and I was super surprised to find it! I'd love to explore other perspectives to worldbuilding, so I'm looking forward to reading a lot on here. :)
- pillow-ghost
Welcome to the guild pillow-ghost!
You said that one of your tools is Manga Studio, are you doing both cartography and illustrations? Hand drawn has been my main too, however it seems like everyone is going to digital these days. Show us some of your maps!
-darcycardina
Hey there!
I dabble at illustrating as well, but because it's just a hobby I've got a lot of work to do before I'm up to a standard I'd be happy with, unfortunately. But, it's all practice!
I like hand drawing for drafting, because I find I get a much better feel of the shape of what I'm building that way. But it's hard to beat the polish that comes from digital.
This map (if the attachment works) is one of the more recent ones I've done; it's an island state based loosely on the idea of a Vatican See founded on an island like Malta. I had topographical profiles for it as well, but I never finished a proper map for those. This one I did in photoshop.
map flat version labelled.jpg
-pillow-ghost
Sweet, those names are quite something, I haven't really been able to generate names that well for my map, other than errm, going to google earth and stealing names :/ Anyways, i find island worlds much more easier to work with, and interesting that one large flat section of land. I presume you are going to be adding more layers to this map?Originally Posted by pillow-ghost
-darcycardinal
Well this was more of a population distribution map; kind of working out the major landmarks and population centres (particularly the two cities, Saena and Alba) so I could build culture around them. The island itself has a major peak in the centre (Mont Celeste - probably the laziest named mountain I could think of). I will probably go back and do a topographical map to show elevation later, particularly once I've drawn up the lines for the rest of the world this is set in. I've done rough drafts of the wider setting:
12028958_10153764980977044_1228775366_n.jpg
(The island is towards the middle- it grew rich as a trading port.) My main problem at the moment is it reminds me too much of Europe, which I want to change.
But, semester and work and life have gotten in the way. So I will finish it, but it might take me a while.
In terms of names, culture-building helped a lot. I like to cobble together specific cultural practices, or landscape features, as well as just place-inspired names from wikipedia. Like shaking them all up in a hat
-pillow-ghost
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