Roseville
I just got done making a one day project of turning a mall map into a medieval harbor town. I might add more to the map like color in rooftops and make a cartoon map of a fictional medieval harbor town. I decided to keep the name of the mall as the name of the town. The map was from Westfield Galleria in Roseville, CA. I have a couple of other mall map villages I plan to finish since it's too hot here to keep my hands draw to work on my paper projects.
Roseville Map.jpg
The shape of the town suggests that the main street runs along a valley, so I think I'm going to work with that idea. I'm using MS Paint for this project wince it's the only image editor I have. I might redraw this on paper once the weather cools here later in the year, but that won't happen until the end of October.
I guess I will make a history for this town. It came out looking so real too. I think mall maps are going to be a good source of layouts for small medieval towns.
I think the map is coming along nicely. It is looking like a map of a real town. I might make the map look like a tourist map for a medieval town. I might just write up a brief history that will be on the bottom on the map. The buildings are coming along very well and are looking good.
Roseville - Buildings 1.jpg
Looking good so far darkseed, nice job on the lighting (did you use bevel and emboss or did you manually shade the roof tops?). One thing that kind of sticks out however is that some of the lines in this map look fairly pixalated. Not too familiar with MS paint so I don't know what to suggest in order to fix it unfortunately.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Yes, that update is looking nice. I am guessing the roof colouring was done manually.
The pixellation is obvious, I agree, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. You could try and smooth it out or just leave it for that sort of 8-bit or artificial look. It all depends on the style of image desired.
I looked up Westfield Galleria just to compare it to the mall layout. It's pretty faithful! One of the more unique sources of map inspiration I have seen here!
Everything is being done manually. MS Paint is only the most basic drawing program and it comes with the PC. Normally I never do maps using a computer, but I thought I would give it a shot. I am limited in software options because of the age of my computer, so I think I will work with the 8-bit look. I'm not sure what to do with it, but I am thinking of drawing it on paper at a later stage, because I like the shape of the town and its proportions, something about it hit that sweet spot.
I think the food court ended up being the town square. I never actually been to this mall, but the layout really worked for a harbor town. I have other mall maps, but I think this one is going to get the most attention.
I'm going to stop for the night. The more i fill in, the more I like the 8-bit look. It really works for this. It will be cool to have it redrawn with a vectoring software. Wording is going to be the hardest part. I have no idea how I will do that since MS Paint only types right to left. I guess this could be a village anywhere in Europe. I have no facades showing on this map. The bay has a Mediterranean feel to it. Let's say the town is in Italy or France.
Roseville - Buildings 1.jpg
I'm thinking of adding trees to the map, but at this time, I'm done with it. I like how it came out. I'm not so sure if the bluffs came out right. I'm thinking strongly of doing a paper version when I complete the Zigoto map I was working on. I really like how the town's buildings look.
Roseville - Map.jpg
If anyone wants to make a better version, feel free to do so. I'm going to make one more update, which will label the important buildings. I still have to decide what my town will do and what industry will be there.
I like how it's turned out. It might be worth altering some of the "plots" to take into account the ridges though.
Thanks for the suggestion Larb. I like the map so I might do a paper version once I learn the dimensions of Medieval structures. Right now I have no clue how to draw one to scale with my other planned communities.Originally Posted by Larb
It would be a lot of work to get it right, since the map was made in two layers. MS Paint allows white areas to be transparent, but at this time, I think I'm done with working on it. Right now I'm trying to find a way to label buildings, so it can be remade for a game or something. The editing tools I have available made very crooked looking text.
I tried labeling with AutoRealm since it's the only thing I can get on this computer. Once I figure out the program I'm going to label the map.
Have you tried the portable version of GIMP? You can run it from a usb-stick, with absolutely zero files being installed on the computer. I use it all the time when I'm at work. You can find it here.
Caenwyr Cartography
Check out my portfolio!
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
