Mackinac Island

[Gidde]

So, I've been needing to practice doing real-world maps, so I figured for my next try at ink-and-watercolor, I'd join the lite challenge entrants in spirit if not in entry

Mackinac Island, for those who aren't from Michigan, is a small island between the two peninsulas of the state, where motorized vehicles have almost never been allowed (they make exceptions for emergency vehicles and movies and other rare stuff). It has two forts on it, and it's just a cool place to go, to ride horses all over the place, and, hopefully, to map.

So I grabbed a screenshot from OpenStreetMap ... grabbed several more at a higher res because the first one didn't cut it, and stitched them all together for base map #1. Then I found another open map that had a better coastline for base map #2, and scaled/rotated the whole kit and kaboodle to fit my paper.

Then I overlaid a grid over the whole thing in gimp, and gridded my paper to match (0.5" intervals), and 1 grid-square at a time, recreated the coastline in a hard pencil. Then inked the coastline with the dip pen so that I can't accidentally erase it as I sketch the innards of the island going forward, and that's where I stop for tonight (and maybe for a few days - I slipped on ice today and landed on my back, so I may be heading back to the doc tomorrow).


This whole project is licensed CC-BY-SA. Data from OpenStreetMap contributors, Eric Gaba (who did the fantastic topo map I'm using as Base #2) and eventually I'll be using stuff from the USGS National Map.