(WIP) Attempting to use an 18th century atlas map as a style model

[Pixie]

Current state of this piece:


I made some labels way less curvy and I also started to do some variation on the mountains. So far, that variation is based on a collection of 7 differents brushes/stamps.

I give it to you Max, the straightned labels work better, and I actually like their current look (most aren't exactly straight, but kinda wobbly). As for the mountains, I am very unsure if the variation improves the piece or not... I think I'll invest on the mountain brushes a little more, just to keep experimenting, but... so far.. hmm.. meh...

@groovey: the mountains are more or less placed where I could spot them on the heightmap, but it doesn't really matter that much, since I am trying to recreate a map made by in late rennaissance - I actually think I should purposefuly make the map less accurate than it is right now. As for the rivers, I use the pen tool, and then "stroke path" with a 1px or 2px simple brush - wide rivers get a lot of wavy lines side-by-side. I'm copying this design from the original Russian Atlas I mentioned before.

[ravells]

The map is looking great, Pixie! As for the labels, I know that you are copying the style of a particular map, but check out the link in my signature to the article by Imhoff about how to label maps well. It's really worth knowing!

[Pixie]

Thank you for the resource recommendation ravells. I had glanced over it more than year ago, and it was very educational for me. This time I went and read it a little more carefuly. Still, like you said, I am trying to emulate a map made 300 years before that essay, and thus I am consciously making choices that wouldn't be made on a modern map and, in small amounts, adding errors to the location of mountains, rivers and cities as well.

Still, my main problem, at this stage, is the sheer amount of place names I need to come up with... In a way, this slows down the work in progress, which isn't bad, since I am refining stuff or coming up with ideas to further improve it. However, it just isn't the most pleasing part of the work!

Here's the current stage of development (this jpg version is made at roughly 40% of the original size, and with average quality compression, in order to squeeze it under 1Mb)


Any comments, positive, negative, constructive or not, are appreciated!

[Will Phillips]

The map is looking great, Pixie! As for the labels, I know that you are copying the style of a particular map, but check out the link in my signature to the article by Imhoff about how to label maps well. It's really worth knowing!

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm working on heavy-duty labelling right now and would have missed the link in your sig had you not mentioned it.

[ravells]

Hi Pixie, this might help. It's a map my wife bought me on my wedding of the Indian Subcontinent. I have been in the process for making a font for this kind of map for years but it has been an 'off again / on again' project, when I've finished it I'll make it available to everyone here.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ighlight=Blair

[jshoer]

Still, my main problem, at this stage, is the sheer amount of place names I need to come up with...

I just crashed through a similar exercise for a map, though not as large a quantity of labels as you're probably looking at. The way I approach the problem of generating a ton of alien names is, essentially, to take the process partly out of my hands. I generate a phoneme inventory (the list of sounds in the language), and then I sorta-randomly pick sounds out of the list to generate names. In one instance, I actually wrote a program to pick sounds with some predetermined probability and some basic rules about which sounds were allowed to follow which others. Actually, since I just did a bunch of names, I'm thinking of generalizing the program so I can provide the initial phoneme inventory as an input.

Anyway, that's what I'd suggest for generating a lot of names: come up with lists of sounds, and then combine them willy-nilly. You'll get some names you don't like, but that's how languages work!

[Pixie]

Hi Pixie, this might help. It's a map my wife bought me on my wedding of the Indian Subcontinent. I have been in the process for making a font for this kind of map for years but it has been an 'off again / on again' project, when I've finished it I'll make it available to everyone here.

Whoaa! that map looks so much with what I am doing. I swear I had never seen it before! I think I will steal the border style, outright.
Creating a font that resembles the type used in both that map and the russian atlas I linked before would be awesome, ravells. I don't think there are similar fonts anywhere on the internet (at least, I never found them).

The way I approach the problem of generating a ton of alien names is, essentially, to take the process partly out of my hands. I generate a phoneme inventory (the list of sounds in the language), and then I sorta-randomly pick sounds out of the list to generate names.

I do the same, basically, and there are a number of online resources which are handy for that - a quick search on this forum will give you/me/us/anyone a lot of links. Someone recently backlinked to a thread on the issue, but I can't remember where I saw that.

Thanks for the comments, ravells and jshoer

[ravells]

Thanks Pixie. I have looked for those fonts which the hugely extended slabs on the serifs everywhere and couldn't find them either. Also the typeface changes considerably depending on what sort of geographical area the font is being used for. I MUST finish the damn thing in Fontographer before I die of old age first!!

[Pixie]

Indeed, you MUST

[A Blood Red Fox]

Though it looks pretty weird, even from the cartographer's point of view, to curve cities labels when you have room to go straight with them. It doesn't really make sense to me. Well, that's just my two cents

I rather like it, it makes me think of one of the labels on the maps in games by Paradox Interactive, like in Victoria 2 or something.