Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Working with SK has been quite fluid for us. He is definitely right when he says there is more cartography to be done in the Vagabonds setting. I am greatly looking forward to future creations!
And, SK, I like that you brought up the real world data issue. We did not just take the old map, translate the Japanese, and label it as such. We actually went in and pinpointed locations, cross-referenced with other maps, laid out the roads, rivers, and major geographic areas accordingly, and included a variety of places not even mentioned on that map, but nonetheless important / period-specific. Given the sketchiness of that map to begin with, we moved around a lot of things, and made locations more specific (for example, sometimes on these old maps, location names are put down in the middle of the province, even though that location is actually on the coast). It was a merging of styles, as well as a pooling of data and research -- and our interpretation of it. So, while that map was used as an outline and base, we could actually create an entire list of references for just this map. Modern-day data and satellite imagery was really only used for climate zone reference. If you look at a satellite map of Japan today, you see a Japan quite different from that of 300-400 years ago -- Tokyo has leveled a lot of the surrounding terrain, rivers have been dammed and rerouted, etc.
SK: Maiko says that whenever I try to write Japanese, and I've been practicing for a while.I imagine our writing looks like a child's to her.
She is exceptionally fast at doing the beautiful brushwork for the labels. I'll get a shot of her at work this evening. What is taking a while is formatting them so that they do not cover up SK's beautiful artwork. I imagine the 3 metropolises and the cities will have the "boxed" text, akin to maps from the time period, whereas smaller locales will not be boxed in. We are still tinkering, but it's coming along. To be clear: the map will be in English, with the exception of Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka, which will be in Japanese kanji (though the English in small text nearby).
I just realized I never posted a shot of the finished handmade paper, with it's beautiful laid lines. Here it is:
I can't express my appreciation of the community here enough, for providing an outlet for someone like me to find a cartographer such as SK, as well as providing valuable and supportive community feedback. A toast to the guild.
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