So, one day I noticed that my irises are a little peculiar: there's an irregularly shaped ring of brown around the pupil, a wide area of blue around that, and the outer ring of my iris is a darker blue. I soon figured out that this is something called central heterochromia iridum, but more importantly, it was the perfect basis for an island map! Eyeland map?

I took a close-up picture of my eye and started working on it. Using my eye as the basis came with some oddities: for example, there's a gaping hole in the middle of my land. I took this to be something between a sinkhole and volcano and looked at some maps of volcanic islands for inspiration.

This is the result. It's the second map I've ever brought to completion, and the first time I've attempted something with more texture to it. Critique is very welcome!
Eye_smaller.jpg

In lieu of a WIP thread, here is a very brief overview of what I did. I selected a colour range, refined the edge of that selection, manually added and removed some bits, and then it was just drawing and more drawing. Only used Photoshop's standard brushes with custom settings. The "waves" around the island were also generated, not hand-drawn. I might eventually remove the rest of the eye and replace it with a more typical "map" layout.
compile_jpg.jpg