The World According to Wolfe

[Greason Wolfe]

So, it was suggested that I start this WIP thread to show the progression of a world I have been working on for a series of stories (and perhaps novels) I intend to be writing in the near future. With that in mind, I took a couple backward steps so that everyone could see where I started from. But first a bit of info . . .

One of my goals when it comes to world building has always been to have something fairly realistic, even when dealing with fantasy. Of course, I want a fantastical element as well, but that should come in bits and pieces rather than saturating every part of the world. To that end, I tend to work from the inspiration that FT Pro provides with its random generation sequence. However, once I've found something I think I want to work with, I go through huge amounts of editing, leveling and trimming the land masses until they start to look Earth-like.

With that said, here are the first three stages of an, as of yet, un-named world. Comments and suggestions are more than welcome, and yes, it is surprisingly Earth-like at this point . . .

The first image (upper left) is the initial rendering by FT Pro. The second image (to the right) is the result of a leveling process. The third image (lower left) is the result of initial land mass cuts to set up a few major continents.

As a brief side note.

My overall preference is for hand drawn maps, typically in black and white and, eventually, this world will be finished up in that fashion. While in the developmental stages, however, I work with a variety of software packages to get a basic layout and a modicum of detail worked up before shifting to the old fashioned way of doing things unless something stands out and demands immediate attention on my part.