James Gurney's Mapping Epiphany

[Carnildo]

James "Dinotopia" Gurney talks about his efforts to generate a fictional city map and the out-of-the-blue epiphany that solved it for him:

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2007/10/cracking-paint-and-city-streets.html


Carnildo

[MGCJerry]

Wow... Thanks for posting this. This was very cool, never thought of that.

[ravells]

Excellent read, thanks!

[Paul]

Cool link! Thanks for posting.

[The Cartographist]

Not only was his "epiphany" interesting, but his site in general has lots of good info for artists, cartographers, and designers. It's a real resource. Thanks for including it.

I'm currently working on a city map for my next BIG project. The way I am going about it is to start from the beginning--literally, the "historical" beginning of the city. I plan to watch it grow organically as I add buildings in the order that I think would make sense. The city is slowly expanding as buildings are built down streets. Then, the construction of a wall will force crowding as space is limited inside. Then, of course, the wall will no longer be able to hold all the inhabitants and building will continue.

Additionally, I started with terrain contours before drawing a single building. I think that the growth of ancient cities was very much influenced by the contours of the land. I'll have them dictate where streets go, where the breaks are between buildings, etc.

I'm very excited about the prospects, and I will, at some point, post some of them to the site.

[Rik]

What a wonderful example of finding inspiration from the world around us.

People don't believe me when I say the inspiration for the shape of the main continent on my constructed world was in fact a patch of mould on my bedroom wall ...