That of...map making.
While I've read dozens of books with maps within the pages, in my own writing, I haven't attempted to create my own maps of any of my worlds.
The only other time I attempted such a thing, was when I was working on a story based in a school, and I was trying to figure out where all the classes were in relation to each other.
But actual world maps. No. Haven't done.
I mean I've drawn maps before for class assignments.... but they've always turned out looking like big blobs that wouldn't actually exist in real life.
Yet, for the past couple of days, I've had this image in my head. A map. For my Forest Story. I've had some details in my head about the location of landmarks and events in the map, but I hadn't drawn them down.
But, with the decision to switch up some things in my forest story, I decided I really needed to get a better picture of what this Forest, actually looked like. And not just the forest, but the land surrounding the forest, and not just that land, but....the entire continent.
Surprisingly enough, I found myself world building.
Figuring out the whys and hows of actions some of my characters take, how different countries are trying to establish trade routes, why those routes would need to be established.
It's actually pretty exciting! :D
So exciting in fact that I stayed up waaaaay late just creating it.
Even more exciting, is that I found out I still had 'paint' on my laptop. So I wouldn't need to get some blank pieces of paper and draw that way, I just used paint to help me create my vision. ^^
It's still not completely done. And I'm sure details will change as I need them.
But wow.
Guys. ()_() I created a map! Of a world!
...Okay it's probably just a continent in the world. But still! I created a 'world!'
And really, I found it a lot of fun. ^^;;
Though I had a bit of help....with existing maps.
Like I said before, when I try to draw my own maps, I just end up drawing a big blobby thing that really doesn't look like a real map.
So, I took existing blank maps from our world and started small.
What did I want the territory of the forest to look like?
How big would it be? What is the shape of it?
Okay, now that that's done, what does the territory look like to the east of it?
(scrolls through map pictures, picks picture, adjusts it to fit with the forest picture and tweak it)
Okay, now to the west of it?
(repeats step)
Now, above it.
(easier, I had an idea of this already)
But...that above it doesn't look quite right.
(scrolls through maps to help it look right.)
Erase lines, add in lines,
Until I had this as my final project. :)
Pretty cool yes? I'm rather proud of it. ^^ Of course this is just the outline, I've filled it out and added more details since this point, but the overall look of this continent is cool looking on it's own. ^^;;
My problem now is....figuring out scale.
I mean, is this place as big as Eurasia? Small like Australia? Somewhere in the middle?
How long would it take to walk across this continent? How long would it take to get through the forest portion of the continent? Does this world even have the same 'day' structure as ours?
No idea, I suppose I'll figure it out if I need the details to figure it out.
At the moment I'm playing with an inch = a thousand miles. (this picture has been shrunk down to fit in the blog post) Making it on the 'bigger' side of the continent scale.
We'll have to see though.
For now, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy it's magnitude of greatness! ;)
-Sarnic Dirchi
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