My biggest atlas project yet

[Eowyn Cwper]

Hello my beloved guild!

Today I'm going to share with you the biggest topographical endeavour I've had to work with and I'm enjoying every piece of it (thank God I got a new computer earlier this year), so I thought I'd share some of my enthusiasm. It's a commission and I'm posting the progress with permission.

The workflow is inspired by Artifexian's series on atlas mapping which I warmly recommend to anyone interested in the topic.

GPlates

The first step was making a sketch in GPlates so that I wouldn't have to bother with the projection while drawing.



Illustrator: Coastlines

Second step: reproducing the coastlines in Illustrator.



We later improved the alignment and worked on the shapes. (You can open the files in different tabs in your browser to be able to compare each version.)







Illustrator: Topography

Topography. <3 This is how it first looked.




Then after some adjustments.




I also made a very professionally-looking sketch for the rivers (in red are the areas I haven't worked with yet). I'm really looking forward to designing the river networks, but a lot more topography will happen before I get to that point!



There is a 400m interval between each layer, which means the massifs reach up to 6,000(+399)m.

I'm going to regularly update you guys on this from now on. Ideas and feedback welcome!

[Diamond]

Yep, pretty ambitious! Looking forward to seeing this progress.

[Eowyn Cwper]

Thank you!

[mrwizard70]

Commissioner here; Eowyn has been excellent throughout the entire process, very impressed with the work so far. Looking forward to getting into some of the more interesting topograhpy in coming weeks and months.

[Stìophan]

Looking good Eowyn, I've been pretty much a lurker here on the Guild myself, have been dabbling with Tear's awesome Saderan tutorial, but like you came across Artifexian's video series which is sublime. I was just wondering did you do tectonic plates in GPlates or did you just skip to your landforms?

Looking forward to further developments

[Eowyn Cwper]

Thanks Stìophan! Mrwizard had the tectonic plates more or less figured out so I didn't have to!

Here's the progress on the biiiiiig massif.

[Stìophan]

Ah, half the battle when you don't have to lol! The Massif looks amazing, love your colour palette as well

[Eowyn Cwper]

Thanks! The palette is rather industry-standard, but it surely makes it look good.

Some more progress! Let me know if you have ideas to improve the lowlands even more.

[Stìophan]

Looking fantastic, I particularly like the river systems/deltas on the first pic

[mrwizard70]

The tectonics were mapped on gplates, but I didn't use any of the simulation features; instead I consulted with geology professors at my school for most of it. You'd be surprised how excited some geology faculty get about the idea- might be worth chatting even if you aren't a student.

I've made major edits to my tectonics throughout the process- don't be afraid to change them if you've got a good idea.