Camoa - An atlas of an island

Hi there!
After I finished this map, I couldn't help but to build up the people living there, the houses they live in, the grain they cultivate and...
So I thought of making detailed maps, different views of the different cliffs, villages, towns, mountains, rivers....and slowly but steady collecting an 'atlas of Camoa'. First, i intended to do it like traveller, beginning with the arrival at some bigger town, but - i'm not ready for a bigger town map, i just started doing maps...

So here's my start, it's the most north cape of the island, i'm not sure about the names yet.
Its all sketched very loose with pencil, then inked with four colors: black, sepia, dark blue and sepia, i might add yellow ...
The size is very tiny: the Paper i draw on is DIN A6, 55 g/m² (4.1x5.8 inches).


So what do you think of it??

I think it's delightful, and I can't wait to see the atlas unfold. It's nice to see hand-drawn instead of machine-generated wave-lines offshore.

Are you thinking the atlas will have a lot of text, or might it be mostly map? If this is as much of the cape as you want to show, there's room for oodles of narrative, or explanation, or data.... or even detail views of this or that feature.

I loved your other map, and I'm really liking this one as well. The colors work well together, and the hand-drawn style is really beautiful. Town maps are hard! But don't be afraid to start small. Towns usually start as small villages anyway, with a small cluster of buildings. Then people just build out from there. Looking forward to more.

- Kes

Thank you for your kind words!

I had some scaling issues: if i draw the bigger square (like i intended to do), the island would be riricously small, with no real vegetation etc, so the smaller square would provide me the credibility of the whole island, but it would absolute insane....

@jbgibson: The atlas would bemore like an enzyclopedia with drawings of plants, side views from offshore usefull infos for travellers etc etc

Cheers

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Wow, a great and very ambitious idea! I have always wanted to do something similar while creating imaginary worlds, never gotten far unfortunately...

You might include drawings and information on the local fauna too, I think it would be very interesting. :) You are right about the scale. The smaller square looks more credible since on the tip of that peninsula you have drawn actual buildings... That is one of the reasons why this project is so ambitious! You don't have to map every corner of your island with such great detail though, it would make the whole project more doable...

EDIT: After thinking about it more, I decided that I am not sure if that smaller square you have mapped in more detail (assuming it is that square you have mapped) is up to scale with the rest of Camoa. It is difficult to imagine the size of rivers and mountains, if that tip of the peninsula is so small that a tiny village takes up its whole width... I would suggest you to decide on the scale of the whole island first before doing more detailed maps of it. It would make your work easier and more consistent.

Nice! I like the style in which you render the maps in traditional ways. It can be realy a big taskl to put so much afford into a series of maps but it is rewarding! I have similar plans with my maps and would love to see your project unfolding.

So after a little break due to university, i re-tought about the dimension, continued drawing and made some thoughts about the clima, fauna, flora and people.

First: The size of Camoa is now fixed: its about 234.66 km² (it's a rough approximation...), longest distance south-to-north is 28.4 km, east-to-west in the north is 36 km (with escona, 24.8 without), in the south about 22.4 km.
The Dø-detail is the small square (see previous post).

Second: The clima is siberian-like: long, hard winters, short, but 'hot' summers. This leads me directly to what plants may exist, how the people make their living through the year.

Third: Why are the people on this Island? i mean, there have to be a good reason beside the nice landscape! The answer is simple: metal, silver, maybe some gold. This again means that the camoanian do a lot of trading with the continent, wich provides them with additional (and necessary) food.

More details and other things worth knowing, at a later stage...

P.S. The parchment is only temporary, and i upload the map of camoa too...

Cheers!

I dig the parchment!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

cool idea with the encyclopaedia, and nice map. nice parchment too if its 'home-made'

I also like the parchment. There have been queit a few of ambitious mapprojects around recently, i wish you good luck and endurance with your enzyclopaedia!