May 2011 Challenge Entry - The Wyndava Islands [Withdrawn]

[LonewandererD]

Okay, time to throw myself into the fight again, no pics as of yet just ideas. On a side note the title is supposed to have Island at the end and the B is supposed to be a V, could an admin please change if you have time?

When tyring to figure out a concept for a map I was stumped to figure a creating way to show national borders so I decided to move onto an insland chain nation map, the sea itself will act as a border. This will be interesting as my first successful map consisted almost entirely of islands so I now I have come back and with what I know now I intend to surpass it.

Also in a break from my usual style (not really my style but you know what I mean) this map will not be in satellite/semi-real style instead as with my other comp entry maps I'm going to wing it and try and hand-draw most of the map and try new techniques. I'm going for something more artsy and less atlas such as hand-drawn cliffs and city symbols, I also intend to make it very colourful with equally artsy decorative elements like the compass and borders. Hopefully I can have some WIP maps up soon.

-D-

[LonewandererD]

Of course what was supposed to be a simple step is turning out to be very annoying. I created an island which is supposed to be the main island in a chain of them but I like the shape of it so much that any island I add after it seems to throw it off. Below is the island outline and hopefully I can finish the chain and get onto the real work. I'm going for a real sea based feel to these islands so the placement of the islands needs to be right or else I get something to haphazard and unnatural feeling or another rip-off the Japanese Island formations.

-D-

###LATEST WIP###

[jbgibson]

Instead of looking at bare coastlines (which is a nice shape thus far, btw), why don't you figure some rough topography? Mountain chain >there< suddenly will make continuation of isles off its end as partly submerged mountains seem plausible. If flat land stretches >here< then maybe the sea adjacent is also shallow, with low isles of a more blobby shape than rocky-fjiordish-crinkled shapes - sandbanks and barrier isles like off the US gulf coast, or North Carolina-to-Georgia coast. If this is a mid-ocean archipelago, figure whether it's a scrap of continent, with continental shelves around about, or maybe abrupt seamounts where most of the uplifted land "makes it" above the waves; sharp dropoffs and navigation all the way to the coast. If some of what you've got going is volcanic seamounts, or drowned elder volcanic seamounts, in a tropical/semitropic clime, maybe there's swaths of reefs (coral won't grow below a certain temperature or depth). Scale matters a bit - how far out one might find reefs, or barrier isles, might be so many hundred yards to so many miles -- only tens or hundreds of miles out if it's really flat/shallow seabottom. If there's an oceanic trench off to one side where a crustal plate is being shoved under your archipelago, the whole set of islands could be caused by uplifted seafloor and volcanism, not to mention the opportunity for cataclysmic earthquakes, tsunamis, and such. If you have many square miles of somewhat sheltered supershallow water, there's cause for a maze of mangrove swamp/islets.

Have you got any preconceived notions about the nation (s) involved? If you "need" lots of seaborne commerce, indentations for harbors are more "necessary". If it's a bunch of xenophobes who don't want contact or don't even know of other lands, sheer-cliff coasts and impassable reefs could be plausible cause (or convenient excuse). If you want considerable island-to-island shipping, the spacing matters a bit. If you want a midocean transfer point / safe haven, that inner bay & sheltered passage is ideal... if you want one city filling that niche, and another rival city wanting the same prominence, you could have the second one's harbor/ anchorage sheltered a different direction - one is safe in one season but exposed during a different wind pattern, the other one vice versa.

[jtougas]

As usual jbgibson has it all covered. I like the shape of your landmass so far and I'm sure whatever you end up with will be great. I find myself looking at my maps with an eye toward the "story". Something like:"hmm..if that mountain chain is broken there than that would be a great place to put a small village that caters to trade caravans or if that bay is deep and sheltered than a city would naturally grow there.." I am very guilty of jumping around on my maps from coastlines to labeling to mountains as ideas pop into my head. It isn't the easiest way to do anything but it (for the most part) keeps me from getting too frustrated or burning out.

[LonewandererD]

Okay, made some progress. I've drawn in the main landmasses, I will be tweaking them and adding more islands as I go along. I'm going to try and make this map uniquely mine without the tuts of other people or their brushsets so there is going to be a lot of posts and lot tweaking and changing, hopefully it works out well.

-D-

###LATEST WIP###

[LonewandererD]

After grappling alot with the question of how to properly apply hand-drawn features to a top-down map and still keep it to scale I decided to pretty much say "screw scale, I'm going for style". I'm already doing something I don't normally do so might as well go the whole way (something about that line calls for a "that's what she said" joke). Instead of doing a top-down view of the map I've distorted it to have a more side-on panoramic view of the map as seen below. The drop shadow is currently only thier to help me figure where to draw in cliffs and beaches. More progress to come soon.

-D-

###LATEST WIP###

[Djekspek]

Start is looking promising and curious where this will go (challenges are a great way to learn new things ). I usually use sketch-up to get 3d reference in my maps. I first load the map outline image and just put that on the ground. Then I throw in some cubes of the same size, get a nice camera angle and use the exported image as reference in my drawings. this way I get a good feel of scale and perspective ... cheers, DJ

[LonewandererD]

Indeed, comps are the best way to learn new things, you have to try and be fresh and original and the parameters placed on the comps actually helps to keep the creativity flowing strong and in the right directions "Sometimes boundaries can paradoxically lead us the freedom" (O'Neil, 1999). Anyway on my, meagre, progress.

It's still all very rough right now but I've put down the bases for the beaches and cliffs and have started to draw in the mountains, keeping it simple for the time being until I have a clearer idea of where everyting is going to go.

-D-

###LATEST WIP###

[LonewandererD]

Some small progress. Not entirely sure if I'm going to finish this map but we'll see how things progress later on. Drew in the mountains and blocked in some colour, now trying to blend the mountains into the ground, add some variance to both and add the rivers.

-D-

###LATEST WIP###

[LonewandererD]

I'm not sure that I'll be able to finish this map and may have to give up on this month's comp, it's not i don't have ideas its that I don't know who to realise those ideas. If I don't make an update in the next few days than i've given up.

-D-