Map-making

[Lekhaka]

Check out this guy he has some really good tips http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO4XZfaSAoA

This guy is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[Lekhaka]

And after checking it out, this one is good too

There's this site on medieval demographics - far from steampunk, I know - but it can be enlightening on what you should keep in mind when designing a city. http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

(How did you find that article, by the way?)

The role playing community really are experts in this field, aren't they? Treading through a path of searches via Google, I found something I'd like to share:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/

Of specific relevance to this thread would probably be this guide: Creation and Depiction of Fantasy Cities.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showt ... s-I-amp-II

(for the pdf provided in that thread, "save link as" and read the file after it downloads; trying to open it in your browser probably won't work due to large filesize)

Of course they do have everything else you could imagine relating to cartography...including a 17 page treatise on how to position names on a map.

[blakjak]

making the map first usually helps generate the story much faster. Natural conflicts and cultures arise when you make it, and I actually feel that's totally been the case thus far.

That is so true, a step I have forgotten.

Btw Camille, your map looks much better.

[Starling]

The icons do help, but the reason I know I was having trouble with my mind with the scale is because the coastline is so detailed.

Of course it might look less nice if you do simplify it, but from my experience looking at maps, the closer up more detailed looks of islands and such had much smoother coastlines since a cartographer isn't going to draw the itty bitty details of the coastline, only the bigger ones, which would just look like small details from a far away country view.

It looks very nice, however