Westbar Redux - A Haerlech Study

[J.Edward]

The line thickness can really play a strong role in how it will look.
There's nothing inherently wrong with a thicker line, but it does make things stand out more and that may or may not be the desired effect.

And yes - it can take a long time if you get going with deeper details.

Oh, NYC has various municipal buildings on islands, not just on the island of Manhattan.
Govenor's Island, Riker's Island [prison], I think N. Brother Island used to be a mental institute.. maybe..
There might be some others too, though I may be misunderstanding your statement.

[Dumont]

Oh, NYC has various municipal buildings on islands, not just on the island of Manhattan.
Govenor's Island, Riker's Island [prison], I think N. Brother Island used to be a mental institute.. maybe..
There might be some others too, though I may be misunderstanding your statement.

Here, I actually found the wiki article on the building itself - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vetera..._Rapids,_Iowa)

A petition to construct a memorial building was filed with the City Clerk on March 4, 1925. Over 40 civic organizations were involved in planning for the structure. Voters passed a bond referendum and a Veterans Memorial Commission was formed.

Plans were drawn and the building was placed on May’s Island. In order to make the building financially feasible, a new city hall was incorporated into the plans. Cedar Rapids, after Paris, France's Hôtel de Ville on the Île de la Cité, and Osaka, Japan, would be only one of three cities to have its government located on an island.

[artsbyjapao]

After working on this for more or less the entire day, here's the state of things:

Attachment 92544

Holy crap, I can now see why this has the potential to take a year.

Notes:

-Realizing I was too aggressive with my line thickness on the buildings, and I'm working through sections to dial it back.
-The further I get with this the more I realize I need to figure out the layout of my city on the outskirts before I progress much more.
-I just wanted to point out that the major government buildings being positioned on an island in a river is an homage to my hometown of Cedar Rapids, IA, one of only two(?) cities in the world to have such a feature in their city.

Good work! Clean lines, perfect shadow. Keep going!

[J.Edward]

Just checking in... maybe giving you a nudge to help push you forward some

[XCali]

Ah! doing roof shadows! That is one of the things that make you realize city maps can be a lot of work. I just got off that phase last week.
Pressing through the shadows really pays off. So, don't give up. Good luck with the rest.

[Dumont]

Small update! New shadows! New grass!

[J.Edward]

It's looking good Chris
I'm busy with a monster city as well.

[Dumont]

Okay, so since I finally found time to touch this map for the first time in ages, I was able to look at it with a fresh set of eyes, and I realized that there are some aspects to this map which are, in my mind, issues that need to be addressed before I can move further with it.

1. The density of the town is incredibly weird, and the layout goes from very dense to bare field in places without a natural reason, such as geography or city walls.
2. The southwest corner of the town is dominated by a giant temple and a group of buildings that make up a campus of sorts (long story), but... there aren't many buildings in the immediate vicinity? Wouldn't the population be more centered around these areas?
3. In the larger scheme of things, this town was designed to be on a river in the middle of a huge plain, but I seem to have forgotten that doesn't mean that everything must strictly be completely flat.

With all that in mind, I just created a new layer and started doodling over the top to try and understand what's bothering me and to attempt to solve it. I've added a bit of a small valley feel to the topography, put the big farm in the northwest up on a rolling hill, and I'm having the extent of the town fading into endless agriculture (which would be appropriate given the history I've created for the town). Still more to do in the southwest area -- i'm considering ditching the campus altogether because it almost feels like having it there demands doubling the size of the proper city collection of buildings to support it.

[Dumont]

AND FURTHERMORE:



As it currently stands, Westbar is the only major city on this river, which begins in the mountains 200 miles to the north, and empties into the sea about the same distance to the south. Does it make sense for there to be a lot of boats or ships on this river? How big would these ships be? What would they be doing? Is this river even large enough to support any meaningful transport?

This is the part of the project where I descend into madness, isn't it?

[Larb]

It does seem pretty narrow for a river that long. But anyway, if they are moving products and raw material from the north (ie: stone, wood, grain) then the river is the most efficient way of doing it in bulk. And the boats will likely be long and narrow.