Jezero

[jshoer]

I have a few friends working on NASA's Mars 2020 Rover (Perseverance) in various capacities, and prodded by one of them I decided to honor the spacecraft launch later this month with a map of its landing site!

For anyone who doesn't follow space exploration, Perseverance is the success to the Curiosity rover and it will be landing in Jezero Crater on Mars, a place once known to have a river flowing into a lake in the crater floor. Here's a NASA page showing a height map of the crater, with the rover landing site circled. "Jezero" actually means "lake" in Bosnian.

Now, of course, I decided to fictionalize the crater...I drew it flooded and in the fantasy-map style I used for my challenge map a couple months ago. I drew the place names mostly from fiction having to do with Mars, with an emphasis on the pulp era. I'll put the list below the map in case you want to know what all the hidden references are.

I am pretty sure that I finished all the inkwork today - all with Copic multiliners, mostly 0.1 and 0.03. My 0.03 is starting to give out, but I used that for some lighter work! I was going for an overall pulp sci-fi classical feel, so I leaned into Greek and Victorian and American West motifs and anchored the border with a statue. (Also, I hid the Mars 2020 mission logo in the border with my signature.)



I'll be working on colored pencils next, and then painting it, just like that challenge map. You'll be seeing a lot of red, and the spiky alien forests will turn green!

"Thuvia," "Ptarth," and "Tarkas" come directly from Burrough's John Carter of Mars books.
"Ylla" is a character Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles.
"Rhiannon" and "Ptakuth" are references to the works of Leigh Brackett, who was known as the Queen of Space Opera!
"Jonz" is adapted from the name of the Martian Manhunter in DC Comics.
"Hiroko" was a prominent character in Robinson's Mars Trilogy.
"Tachi" comes from The Expanse.
"Xelion" is my adaptation of "Helium," which I didn't really want to use directly, again from Burroughs.
"Zsa" is a reference to the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who was in some truly terrible pulpy sci-fi movies.
And, finally, I just couldn't resist hiding a Galaxy Quest reference in there!

[Wraith13]

By Grabthar's Hammer, I will avenge you!

[jshoer]

Don't do that, I'm not kidding.



I decided to add a little more texture to the desert and rocky terrains. I had actually started coloring already, so this is a photo with just the new areas composited onto the old photo, so that I have a reasonable "finished" black and white version of the map.

[jshoer]

What do you all think of these colors? I'm not completely convinced on the yellows - for a Martian desert - in the north, but on the other hand, the red for the southwest seems a little harsh. This photo is maybe a little brighter/yellower than the physical map, but not too much.



I don't know why I never did this before, but this is the watercolor pencil set I'm using, showing how the appearance changes with water. The Ptakuth Desert is mostly Red Oxide (3rd row, 4th col), so you can see what I'm going for after I paint it. One thing I'm thinking about is, if the yellows come out too bright in the desert after painting, I can always color over them again with something else!

[jshoer]

Here's what it looks like painted! We're getting close.

I can do pencil and digital touch-ups. I have to fix the 'U' in "Thuvia," get rid of the tape on the edges, and play with the levels a bit. I might try and blend out some of the harsher brushmarks, especially in the ocean. What do you think?

Launch is the 30th, so I have until then!

[rdanhenry]

I can't wait until we get the follow-up maps of Jeone, Jetwo, and Jethree.

Interestingly, in the thumbnail, the coloring looks a little clumsy/clumpy, but it mostly looks very good at full size. I like the colors pretty well. If you want to get a little more ambitious, color a little harder on the shady side of crater and mountains (as you already have the dunes). I think the lizard could probably use a little more work, unless it is supposed to be blotchy. Of course, you can look at the real thing, so can better judge than we can from a photo. Looking forward to seeing this finished.

[jshoer]

Blotchy? Hmm... Looking at the photo I uploaded above, I'm thinking that maybe the lizard is just a little out of focus. Here, I tried to do a better job clipping the warped paper down to a flat surface and used my phone camera to get another snap. Does the lizard still seem blotchy to you?


Another thing I can do is try overlay the black-and-white photo of the line art over the painted photo to crisp up the lines and emphasize the boundaries between colored regions. I think the paint covers over the lines a little.

[rdanhenry]

Blotchy? Hmm... Looking at the photo I uploaded above, I'm thinking that maybe the lizard is just a little out of focus. Here, I tried to do a better job clipping the warped paper down to a flat surface and used my phone camera to get another snap. Does the lizard still seem blotchy to you?


Another thing I can do is try overlay the black-and-white photo of the line art over the painted photo to crisp up the lines and emphasize the boundaries between colored regions. I think the paint covers over the lines a little.

It looks a lot better in that picture (I did say that you had the best view). Now, however, I notice the breaks in the line art for the lizard. You can get away with the lack of a contour for the neck where the frills/spikes are, but I think it would look better if the right back leg had an inked edge below the rider's armpit.

[jshoer]

I'll see what I can do. Thanks for the feedback!

[jshoer]

Okay, subtle line addition, new photo, some level adjustments, and some clone tool repairs later: