FIRST MAP: 5th Century Milan - Advice

[Rathko]

Longtime lurker: first time poster. Inspired by the awesome work I see on here, I finally took a stab at my first map. It's intended to be a representation of Mediolanum (Milan) circa AD400 in the style of a 19th century lithographic print. I'm really looking for any general feedback and advice, but particularly a point in the right direction to better understanding the hierarchy of graphical treatments, how to represent the farmland outside the city walls, and how to communicate the path of roads when there are no structures to create borders. Any and all comments/critiques welcome. Thanks.

MediolanumPlan.jpg

[Wingshaw]

Welcome to the Guild, Rathko, and have some rep for dropping a map in your first post

I know Milan quite well, but I've never seen it from this perspective before. I didn't even know it was a Roman city. Did you research the ancient layout/buildings extensively, or does this include some creative license?

I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of suggestions for you, because I'm not sure how you can get that 19th century lithographic feeling you want. A few things you might want to consider: try to make the map less sharp and less digital looking. If the look you're going for is a bit like this London map, then making the lines just a little bit less straight and adding just a little bit of colour or shading, can help distinguish between roads and farmland outside the city. Using a denser pattern of strokes on the building blocks might help them jump out a bit more, and that in turn will highlight the roads.

I think perhaps the key thing is to reconsider how you're doing the ditches (I assume that's a ditch, outside the walls and disappearing off the bottom and lower right edges of the map?) IF you make them more clearly ditches, you can use the same technique to indicate the boundaries between farms/fields

I hope some of that is helpful. You've got a very good start here, I'd say.

Wingshaw

[Falconius]

I agree with Wingshaw in that it is too crisp for a print. I'd suggest antialiasing the objects and lines (if it's still an option at your stage) a bit with might help. It would help to know if this image is being created in a raster program or a vector program.

I also struggle with fields and roads when there are no particular borders of any kind. For roads I think you just have to go with the tried and true method of using outlines of various types until you think of something better. For fields what I did in the past was various shapes of muted colours, you could do different values of grey or different patern fills if they were muted enough, or ignore them completely.

[Rathko]

Thanks for the feedback. Very little of Roman Milan remains, despite it having been the capital of the western empire for 120 years. About 50% of the black structures, including the walls and forum, are as accurate in scale and location as my understanding of Italian archeological surveys allows. The other 50% are less certain, but in the generally agreed areas. Other than a couple of primary arteries, very little is known of street layouts, so that's all conjecture. I'm currently trying to reduce the overly digital appearance (it's amazing what you don't see until someone points it out) without redrawing the whole thing. Thanks again (and that's a perfect example of what I'm going for, Wingshaw).

Color Test.jpg

[Falconius]

That looks pretty good. Whatever you did is just about perfect The lettering is getting a bit too grainy to read clearly though.

[Robulous]

Well done for you first map! What software are you using?

A few points -
- The grainy texture does improve things I'd be interested to see more
- Does the dashed area around the city represent water? It's kinda hard to tell what that means
- I don't much like the shaded 3d isometric look of your buildings, I know it is done a little in old city maps but it's hard to pull off without screaming digital.
- The walls are a bit too straight and angular
- The lined shading on the buildings is too much, try making it smaller and reduce the contrast
- I'd lose the dotted texture of the land surrounding the city, I don't think it really adds anything

Good work I'm interested to see more

[vxzf]

looking good for first time mapping, look forward to see your next maps

[casper1997]

Thanks for the feedback. Very little of Roman Milan remains, despite it having been the capital of the western empire for 120 years. About 50% of the black structures, including the walls and forum, are as accurate in scale and location as my understanding of Italian archeological surveys allows. The other 50% are less certain, but in the generally agreed areas. Other than a couple of primary arteries, very little is known of street layouts, so that's all conjecture. I'm currently trying to reduce the overly digital appearance (it's amazing what you don't see until someone points it out) without redrawing the whole thing. Thanks again (and that's a perfect example of what I'm going for, Wingshaw).

Color Test.jpg

The detailing on the second map makes it so much more believable. What programme and settings did you use to make it look more like an authentic map? I am really interested to know how because i think it would improve my own maps as well.