[WIP] Orhamear (Modern Atlas Style)

[Quabbe]

Hey there,

I picked up this style a while ago, while I was leafing through an old atlas (from 1986). I am a big fan of the Torentine Map and wanted to create something similiar. The attachement below is, what I actually have.

But I have a question. To create the horizontal grid lines was not a problem. I created a fix point with the Guide Lines in the outer workspace and choose the Elliptical Marquee tool with fixed size, clicking onto the fix point by holding down Alt. Each line is a little smaller than the previous one. But for the vertical lines, this technique seems not to work. I want to creat very slightly curved lines - almost straight. You know what I mean! But when I'm using the Marquee tool with a huge size (40k+) and set the fix point very far away in the work space, the resulting selection is not bent, but jagged and pixelated. A problem of my laptop, I suggest.

Which technique could work then? The path tool may work of course, but I have absolutely no talent with the path tool. And how should I adjust the pathes properly? I have absolutlely no idea!

Any tipps are really welcome!


Quabbe

[Javen]

That is a really beautiful map, and I admire your perserverence with manually making those mountain ranges. Are
1) Have some rep, even if it isn't finished.
2) The path tool is not terribly hard to use once you get used to it. If you've ever worked with Illustrator, you'll find it's actually very friendly. I would suggest just making sharp lines initially and using the editing tool to curve them, and graduating when you feel comfortable to modifying the lines as you make them. You can tackle the problem at that step of lines not bending in the direction you want them by clicking the end point and acting like you were going to bend it more, but doing nothing. I've found that that tends to reset the curves.

Assuming you're going to fill it in more, I'm looking forward to seeing how you label things. I've found that there are surprisingly few free fonts for modern-looking maps, but Chanticleer Roman has worked well at least for me for serifs, and the default fonts can provide sans-serifs.