Superhero City Map

[Coyotemax]

Ascension: I'm with you. I keep fighting with myself to not take this into photoshop - though now Ravells has me thinking I could get away with it to get the layout done then trace

Hrmmmm *ponder*

Nah. I'm too far in, and I'm actually learning to use the program in the manner in which it was intended. Really, I was having trouble with inspiration. I must have started 2 dozen maps over the last week, and never got past the land-mass building stage. I don't have any paid commissions going on right now, or unpaid for that matter (well except this one now) and it felt lik all the creative juices were gone. That's when I remembered the email from AslanC in query about doing a modern city map - and I was all "maybe someday" while cringing at the thought of fighting with Illustrator.

It helps to be doing something new - and while I started with a simple online tutorial, I quickly realized I was going to have to completely change the method if I was going to get it to look anywhere near professional quality.

I've started the on/off ramps for the highways, I'll post an update to them later (i'm drifting between naps right now). I've actually been using Google maps as an inspiration for the colour scheme (though not *too* closely) but there's certain aspects to the look i'm just not sure how to get just right

Thanks to everyone for the support!

[Coyotemax]

Well back to the headbashing. The intersections are causing me grief. I have a few ideas though, I've been reading up on a few things and I may have a solution soon.

Incidentally Ravells, I found the equivalent of your Polyline - it's referred to as a compound object. I put it to good use in this case with the water, so i could cut holes where the islands should be I may mess around with it a bit more later.

meanwhile, I have the landmark style buildings placed and the parks, now to decide what to do about the intersections before I start on the street grid. I also have a layer (hidden here) with notes on what districts will have twisty streets vs grids, etc. woot!

[Coyotemax]

I adjusted a few buildings now that the streets are being placed. I rearranged the large intersections a tad, and while they look better I'm likely going to leave anything smaller out of the picture.

The surface streets are coming along nicely! Now the hardest thing to contend with is the tedium of placing everything.

[ravells]

That's looking really good, Coyote! The Road network looks really plausible (I find that one of the hardest bits).

[Coyotemax]

Thanks! I'm trying for a balance of planned, organic, requests to "make this district all mazelike" while still keeping it realistic, and keeping in mind some areas are old while some are new, and so on.

Google Maps is a great help in this regard, i can look for neighbourhoods in cities I've lived in that match the descriptions of the neighbourhoods for the map and get a good feel for how they should map out (living in them years ago means i may remember the feel, but not always the exact layout, heh).

I also have to say, forcing myself to use Illustrator has really paid off, especially since it's in a commission context - I'm being a lot more adamant about overcoming my learning curves than if this was a personal project. I wouldn't say we're friends yet but we're making progress with the relationship

[AslanC]

Sorry to cast "raise thread" on this one, but I wanted to get your attention CM

We need to talk about this is a BIG and PROFITABLE way sir.

Contact me ASAP

[KJSEvans]

I'm a newb ... just wanted to say that I enjoy seeing the work in progress.

[AslanC]

Just spoke with CM on Skype, we are moving forward with this.

[Coyotemax]

Planned changes:

• Increased map size
• laying out rail first
• writing up a brief city history in stages so the final layout will be more natural
• possible addition of elevation contours
• more landmark buildings for downtown
• new name

Increased size shouldn't be a problem as it's vector. Right now the city is basically a big rectangle - let's see what's outside the border of the paper! I'm going to go through a brief writeup of the history so i can lay it out like I did the Cruzamento map and build it up by stages. And being this city will have been around for awhile, makes sense to have more history for the downtown.

Now to find the backup files!!!

[Coyotemax]

been working on and off and finally got the water laid out. And I was able to make Bryce useful

Having the shaded relief underlaying things will make for a more natural layour I think. I don't know if it will stay in the final version but it will certainly be part of the working background.

I am thinking about sprinkling some small islands throughout the river and lake systems.

I'm also thinking now that I have this laid out that the lake/river system in the top left (the one with the rivers that join up coming in from the left) would be a more reasonable place to put the dam than the large lake along the top.. Fill in the valley there and booyah.