The World of Aurelia

[Caenwyr]

Hey peeps! So I recently reeled in a commission from a video game developer. The first map I'll be making for this commission is a world map. Client had a series of continents in mind, but left it to me to draw their shapes. I played around with their positions a bit and we finally settled on an outline that was both pleasantly plausible, and easy on the client's eyes.

Aurelia_world_0i1.jpg

So the top portion of the map is taken up by a sort of double continent (a bit like Eurasia), separated only by a huge desert region. The eastern lobe is called Abanthus (A), and the massive western bulge is called Eoduan (E).

West of that lies the continent of Odisier (O), south of which lies Marossi (M).

Almost touching both Eoduan and Abanthus is the continent of Lamoura (L), right smack on the equator, and finally there's the mysterious continent of Zeracia (Z), which is very hard to find due to the constant storms on its coasts.

I proposed a number of projections, and client was a big fan of the double hemisphere option. I decided not to go for the Stereographic projection because of the weird distortions near the poles, but chose the Apian instead. This gave me this:

Aurelia_world_0i2.jpg

And now I've begun drawing in the terrain layer by layer, beginning with the continent of Abanthus:

Aurelia_world_2.jpg

The idea is to pull the map (once it's finished, which is gonna take a few weeks probably) through Wilbur and then create a shaded terrain out of it. And then it's off to labelling!

But for now: baby steps

[Adfor]

I like the coasts so far, and yes, Zarecia sounds mysterious! Lovely work as always, Caenwyr!

[J.Edward]

That defintely looks good as a double hemisphere piece.
The land shapes flow around well, which is not always an easy thing.

I'm gonna follow this. I did the same thing for a map and encountered some odd issues with wilbur.
Some stair stepping and other artifacts. But, it was my first time using wilbur, so I assumed I just didn't know the best way.

[Caenwyr]

I'm gonna follow this. I did the same thing for a map and encountered some odd issues with wilbur.
Some stair stepping and other artifacts. But, it was my first time using wilbur, so I assumed I just didn't know the best way.

Oh yes, Wilbur can be a difficult beast to tame. But man, if all goes well the results are super awesome. I'm thinking of erasing the most obvious steps myself by basically smudging them out in the basefile (I might even go to the trouble to do that for every layer, everywhere, although I'm probably a madman for even considering that!).

I managed to get some more work done on the map, still on that first double continent:

Aurelia_world_4b.jpg

[Caenwyr]

And here's the main continental mass all done (but not eroded yet of course):

Aurelia_world_5c.jpg

Or to give you a better idea of where the water bodies and the rivers will go:

Aurelia_world_5.jpg

[Rubikia]

I love the shape of the continents ! They really suit the projection, especially the one(s) in the western hemisphere ! Looking forward to watching this progress

[Caenwyr]

Thanks Rubikia!

This morning I managed to get some more work done on the map. I finalised the contour lines, threw em into the Wilbur mill, and out came this:

Aurelia_world_6b.jpg

I then imported it back into Photoshop, and started toying about with a string of gradients. And this is what I ended up with:

Aurelia_world_6g.jpg

[QED42]

Looking really awesome so far, can't wait to see how it turns out.

[Caenwyr]

Looking really awesome so far, can't wait to see how it turns out.

Thanks QED!!

You know I'm a pleaser, so here's my next update right away: the continent of Lamoura!

Aurelia_world_8c.jpg

Still gotta adapt the coastlines and draw in the rivers of course

[Caenwyr]

Okay. No (major) update on the land side of things... but I did do the sea floor!

Aurelia_world_9.jpg