Feb/Mar 2016 Lite Mapping Challenge: Personal Rapid Transit

[JustinSlick]

Okay, I'm going to get started a little bit earlier this time instead of just posting a WIP the day before the challenge ends .

Non-essential backstory: Questions of practicality aside, the Space Elevator™ is one of my absolute favorite concepts in sci-fi. I'm not a "serious writer", but do consider it a hobby, and over the years I've written a number of little vignettes about characters and events in and around a space elevator complex. Because between the orbital station and everything happening around the base I just think there would be sooo much going on at a place like that.

I've always imagined it as an artificial off-shore platform with a planned city/development in the near vicinity. This is going to sound cheesy, but my mental reference point is Walt Disney's original EPCOT plan, because it's such an archetypal "world of tomorrow" kind of vision.

Relevant to the challenge: When I saw the theme, my first idea was to map out the transit sysfor my space elevator city. Since people don't drive boring old cars in the world of tomorrow, I imagine they'd be using some kind of personal rapid transit system.

But realistically, I think there would also be some kind of light-medium capacity commuter rail, and also a high-speed regional rail (since this is The Future, let's call it a Hyperloop ).

So that's the plan, gonna try to map out three types of rail near a really long vertical rail. Can't really call this a wip yet, but I did scribble in my notebook a little bit.



I'm honestly sitting here laughing at the bottom right sketch, because I have no idea why there's a 1930s suspension bridge leading to my looks-like-an-office-building space elevator

[Greg]

Let's just say that bottom sketch is a retro-future combo

It's good to have you join the challenge and I love your sketches so far Justin. I look forwards to seeing how you translate these into your final map!

It's also nice all the entries so far are shaping up to spoil us with a great variety of styles and themes.

[ChickPea]

Welcome to the challenge, Justin, nice and early this time!!

I like your ideas and there's nothing wrong with a mix of old and new architecture! Looking forward to seeing where you go with this.

[Tonnichiwa]

This is gonna be cool. It's a great idea and your sketches really bring it to life. Can't wait to see it done!

[snodsy]

Great idea, look forward to seeing these transit systems take shape.

[Corilliant]

Oh, yes. I like the look of this one!

[ravells]

Yay! A beanstalk! I love your sketchbook drawings.

[JustinSlick]

Hey, thanks everyone for the welcome! I have worked with pixel based software for a long time, but my interests have shifted a bit and I've been thinking it's really time to learn vector techniques. And a transit map is kind of a perfect opportunity to do it, but I've been psyching myself out for the last five days because shifting between two pieces of software that are superficially similar but fundamentally different is always somewhat frustrating.

So I don't really have a significant update, but I finally opened up Illustrator last night and started hunting YouTube for relevant tutorials (of which there are thankfully many). So nothing fancy, but here's a little metro-style test:



And jotting down a couple more sketchbook ideas, because these are fun to do and don't require any real planning or problem solving. The left would probably be a commercial space and the right is some kind of industrial facility. Desalination maybe?



So anyway I need to start working on actually putting some of these things into an actual map. Maybe tonight.

[ravells]

Here's some inspiration for you from toff - one of the best mappers in the Guild

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=1898

[Bogie]

Welcome to the Challenge, Cool Sketches.