WIP - Scintilla - First time map maker

[Moonborn]

Hello Cartographers.

Brand new here but long time lurker here and around other map making haunts. Primarily, I am a writer and world builder. However, I have always wanted to create a map for one of the worlds I am working on. So, here we are finally giving it a go and dang is it tough! Probably wouldn't be having so many issues if the world I want to portray wasn't so,.. strange? exotic? alien? I think a lot of the mistakes I have been perceiving myself making are genuinely basic/common map making mistakes. Stuff like poor attempts at perspective and a terrible eye for scale. Certainly there are also plenty of mistakes due to the world being garish and weird by design as well. A fact that puts accomplishing what I want that much farther beyond my artistic talents as well.

My hope in posting here is twofold.

• One, I am hoping for general advice, constructive criticism and encouragement from the community. Clearly you all are the experts and echo chamber I need to immerse myself in to improve.
  
• Second, I am hoping to gauge the viability of commissioning the final product. My talent is in writing, not visual arts. Producing the results I want are beyond me at the moment. Eventually this project might evolve into the setting of a TTRPG or a novel - that is the ambitious hope anyway. That said, I imagine the statement 'this project might evolve into...' could be considered a red flag here for commission artists so I want to be clear: I'd be absolutely looking to pay for your professional services as what they are, a professional service. None of that 'I'll pay you in royalties when I hit it big!!! bull****. Maybe that goes without saying, I've just heard some horror stories in other Art communities.
  
  I do have some questions regarding the commission process, I imagine it varies from artist to artist, but I want to get a feel for what most need from a client to get a project properly defined.

For now I want to focus on that first hope, advice. I figure describing what I am trying to accomplish and what I have so far is a good start.

The basics of what I am trying to do

A world map depicting the world's one known continent.
The 'continent' is a series of high elevation land-forms encircling a large crater.
This continent is probably ~the size of Australia, though I when it comes to scale at this point.
This world has no traditional oceans. Instead it has, for lack of a better word, a cloud-ocean. An incredibly dense, low lying cloud-cover blanketing the world.
Only land above a certain elevation pokes up out of the clouds. Mountains or the upheaval caused by the impact that made the crater.
The world is firmly set in the extremely broad genre of Science-Fantasy, combining aspects both Fantasy and Science Fiction.

What Ive done so far
I looked around at various images of craters settling on Manicouagan Reservoir as my inspiration. On Wikipedia there is an extremely high resolution image of the crater. This was probably my first mistake. I spent ages carving land-masses out of an image that was, frankly, way way way too big! Once I had that done I converted what I spent way too long doing into vectors to safely downsize them to a more manageable size. I ended up with this:



I then decided that was way too big and way too square. Almost everyone in this world is going to live around the interior of the crater. Things get a great deal more dangerous and difficult to traverse the further inland one goes. So, I cropped it down to this:



After that, I faced a crisis of map style and theme, a crisis I've still not reconciled. Found so very many maps from this community I admire and am envious of. As this is a Science Fantasy world I debated between doing a more modern style elevation map or creating what appeared to be a hand painted, or hand drawn map. I think I am leaning heavily towards the latter, I find that style of map more evocative in general but I've still not made a solid decision regarding style.

Rather than keep spinning my wheels with decision paralysis I started painting. Maybe something good would come of it! Added some clouds first to establish early that what surrounds the landmasses is not water but rather cloud and gas. Painted in some cliffs, which I actually really like but this is where I started to doubt my grasp of perspective and scale.



Lastly, and this is where I am at now and what has prompted this post, I have tried to get started on zoning areas for mountain-ranges, jungles, deserts, etc. I am almost embarrassed to post this last one cause it is a mess. I like some of what I experimented with but, enh.... So many times I started and erased what I put down. Cycled through loads of mountain range brushes (goodness do I wish I could hand draw these things) Just a lot of trial and error. Attempting and then erasing.



So yeah. That is where I am at. Long rambling post, I know. Sure hope I posted it in the right place. Any and all advice is welcome! More than that, begged for. Comments, criticisms and questions as well. I am in the dark here and I think my trial and error has dragged this map kicking and screaming as far as I can take it by myself. Time to talk to the awesome map nerds!

Cheers and thanks.

[Diamond]

First of all, it's a really intriguing idea! How do people 'sail' the seas? Or are they pretty much impassable? I'm picturing explorers delving down the sides of the landmass lower and lower, finding relics and cities and unsavory beasties. Are there actual oceans? Because if you're going to have rivers on your mega-plateau they're gonna need something to drain into.

I would guess this land is colder on average since it sits much higher than the concealed lands below. Some questions to ask (that I can't answer by the way ) would be: Is the atmosphere thinner? If so, how has that affected life and the development of civilization? What latitude does the 'continent' sit at? Where do the prevailing winds come from? How do people build civilization(s) without an ocean? Historically, the first cities formed along rivers and sea shores - abundant fishing, ease of travel, etc. Why does the cloud cover never disperse?

It really is a cool idea, and I guess how realistic you intend it to be is going to inform how you develop it. You could opt for handwavium and say things are the way they are just because. Or you could go ultra-realistic and realize that some of the things you may have in mind for this setting just wouldn't work. Or some combination of the two.

[Moonborn]

Thank you.

These are very intriguing questions. A few I had answers for, a few got me thinking, trying to fill in the gaps.

Before I get to the questions though the topic of realism versus, as you put it handwavium. I am striving for realism, or as close as I can get to it. This is going to be a very strange world though! Pretty dang alien to our own. Realism is the goal but getting there is going to be tough. I do want to avoid over-explanation in the actual narrative as it is likely to get in the way of plot or a sense of wonder. The people of this world don't know themselves, they have only existed as a people and civilization for ~a century. Much of their world is a complete mystery to them! That said, I want the answers for myself to satisfy the world-builder and, probably more importantly, for consistency's sake!

Some of your questions did prompt me to draw up a little diagram. A cross-section of the world that hopefully helps with visualizing what the heck is going on and what I am going for. It is something I've meant to do for a while.



Probably should have labeled it, maybe I will. The top example is a normal crater. The bottom is something called a 'complex crater' where the edges of the bowl collapse inward and often settle in tiers. I am not sure which I will go for with the map yet. Considering this is a large impact the complex crater is the more likely result I believe.

As you can see there is the land above the cloud layer and within the bowl of the crater there is a pocket beneath it. This pocket would be habitable and populated as well.

The giant rock thing, that is a chunk of the planet's moon. Normally an asteroid impact would obliterate the ballistic object. It is probably not the least bit realistic that it is still partially intact. Can't say I'm an expert of the physics here. It is one of those things I want to have in the world so if Handwavium is all I've got to fall back on so be it. It is absolutely a case of I want this cause its cool to me and I will work backwards from the idea to find explanations. In this case I was thinking that the lunar fragment hit at a much lower velocity than the average asteroid impact.

Your Questions

How do people 'sail' the seas? Airships! Zeppelins, Hot-Air balloons, etc. Still working out the details but Airships are one of the core themes I want to focus on. Though, right now I am considering wonky 1920s ish inspired airplanes and conceptual flying machines.

Are there actual oceans? Probably, maybe. I am imagining yes, however, they are going to be near entirely inaccessible to the people living in this world that they're unlikely to be discovered anytime soon.

Rivers... Are something I have been struggling with. I imagine there would not be much rainfall at these higher elevations. Rivers are likely rare, or nonexistent. What rivers do exist would spill over the cliffs into the clouds.

Water scarcity is a big challenge people must solve for. Many communities likely get the majority of their water from the clouds, skimming for vapor and purifying before it is safe to drink.

The other idea I had was, keeping in mind this is a Science Fantasy setting, terraforming machines. Esentially this world is sort of a distant post-apocolypse setting. Previous civilization kicked the bucket for various reasons. They were trying to deal with climate change built a bunch of colossal machines intended to clean up the right state of things and those machines have just chugged on doing their thing with no one around to turn them off. There is a bit more to it than that but this is already going to be a long reply. Imagining a number of water creation/purification machines flooding large areas.


Is the atmosphere thinner? A little probably. The idea ofthe cloud ocean is that it is a layer of atmosphere that is heavier than the usual surface level composition that Humans are comfortable in. I am sure this is not how it would work but I imagine it pushing that breathable Goldilocks zone to a higher altitude. That or people have just adapted to living in a thinner atmosphere.

How has that affected life and the development of civilization? Drastically, there are a lot of factors in play here that have affected Human development but focusing on the topic at hand. As alluded to before, most settle around the rim of the Crater. This is both because inland travel, or surface level decent down into the crater/clouds is extremely dangerous. In addition, to the water source factor there is also food. A staple food being birds and bird-like creatures. 'Fishing' is alive and well despite there being no ocean.


What latitude does the 'continent' sit at? I was thinking ~30°-~40° N or S

Where do the prevailing winds come from? Hadn't given this any thought! Probably from the East.

Why does the cloud cover never disperse? A combination of apocalyptic tumult, most of the planet's oceans having evaporated and the aforementioned terraforming machines. Probably loads of mega-machines below pumping out raw ozone, many of them likely malfunctioning in just the worst ways.

[Badger]

Welcome Moonborn, you are in the right place! Hope to see and hear more about this world you are building. I love world building myself, as a GM for many different games over the past years, I find it fun to write about histories and making the maps that go along with all of it. Don't worry about the rambling, I ramble too, so if they can put up with my long meandering posts, your good.

Since you are brand new to mapping, I thought I'd just give some general advice, the kind that happens through trial and error. I hadn't read anywhere, or I've missed it, but what are you using to map and paint with?

I've always found, especially in the world building aspect and the mapping part, to start small and work your way up. Like, I'll make a world map on paper, a sketch.... and then, once that is done, and I have a scale for everything... I focus down to a smaller region and fill that area out and map it. I build worlds primarily for ttrpgs that I GM or play in, so that is how I build and map, small to big. Maybe that will help. When you make a big continent like the size of AUS and then start mapping, you come to realize that there are a lot square miles in that size and that putting interesting things down at that size, becomes a chore. In your case, I would have started with the larger map, put in the communities, the ones that I knew I was going to use as backdrops, then focused down on the area of a community and fill it out and map it. I almost always do this part on paper, then transfer to digital before I go mapping areas. When I have to do a large area, like a continental or world map, as in commisions or I will have a larger map for the characters to get their bearings in the world they live in, I pretty much map the same way you are mapping it out right now. Regardless of using stamps or brushes, I define all the mountainous, hilly, forest, lake, badlands etc... I build from there, textures, stamps etc... Just stick to your theme, you are doing great. And hey, don't worry, the first one is the hardest, you will probably spend hours trying to get it to look right, I know I did.

On commisions, ya. Always use a contract. In fact I believe aeshnidae put together a crash course on contracts that you may read up on, ask questions about. There are also hundreds of tutorials on here, for all kinds of platforms, styles and mapmaking.

Badger