How to best draw an accurate earth world map on an A0?

[MartinMånsson]

Hello,

I want to start working on a hand drawn world map of Afro-Euroasia on an A0 papersize sheet. My plan is to make a historical still of the world's trade routes, notable cities and strategic topography, so, my map will be asymmetrical, making notable cities along with their immediate surroundings scaled up.

I wonder if there are any tips and tricks in order to make it easier to draw an accurate map of the world by hand. The solution i'm currently thinking about is to scale up and zoom in a world map as if it was an A0 size, then print portions of the map on A4 sized papers - which i'll then use for reference. The out-printing feels necessary if i want to adjust the rotation of the landmass on my A0 sheet.

I could use transparent paper and draw the landmass using the printed out A4's as reference and then scan the result to a A0, but i want to be able to change the landmass shapes as things develop, so the drawing cannot be permanent as a scan would make it.

Any suggestions about additional references, and how to best use my reference?

[johnvanvliet]

this worked for me in the late 70's and early 80's (k-12)
a overhead projector

[MartinMånsson]

It's a little pricy alternative for me, i'm afraid.

[waldronate]

Printing to smaller sheets and tracing is probably a good best answer if you're not interested in a pure-digital work. As johnvanvliet suggested, an overhead projector might be useful, especially if you can borrow or get time to use one at your local elementary school or library. You can make a pantograph for the project, but that might be overkill. You might build a camera obscura, but it would be a bit large to accomodate an A0 piece of paper. There is a similar device whose name escapes me that consists of a piece of glass or other reflective/transparent material that is held in a frame relatively close to your face and that reflects your small source material on the shiny surface and you draw that reflection onto the large piece of paper below (you need to start with solid calibration marks to ensure that your eye doesn't wander too much from session to session).

You might also be able to locate a good-enough map of the desired size that you can rotate or align to trace onto your final map, or even slice up and turn into a collage that you could then trace. You can often find National Geographic maps cheap on eBay or at your local bookstores.