11 replies to this topic

[whiters]

Hi!

Mapmaking is my hobby and I draw maps just for fun.
This map represents urban area of fictional place.

What does professional society think about amateur's work?
 dolton_urban_area.png   568.17K   202 downloads

[Nick H]

Mapmaking is my hobby and I draw maps just for fun.
This map represents urban area of fictional place.

What does professional society think about amateur's work?

I'm not a professional map-maker either I'm afraid. The map is rather beautiful, I'd lose the grid and put a border around it.

Regards, N.

[François Goulet]

I'd say the color are nice, labels are quite clear and it looks like a "real" map from a road atlas (minus highway shields and numbers... which could be add imho...).

[MapMedia]

Very nice actually. I was thinking you used a tablet to trace a map, but since its fictional, I'll assume you drew it by hand in your drawing program (which is?).
Overall it is clean and I like the landcover classes: urban, non-urban, forest, water.

A few things:

1. Label the highways and major roads (use your imagination)
2. One label per waterbody is fine. You can stretch out Antre River quite a bit. One Isenian Sea is fine.
3. A labeling rule is to place waterbody label completely inside or outside the feature, not half in/out, but I have seen this rule broken as often as I have seen it followed.
4. A little box with description of © (P) (L) circles.
5. There is enough open blue space in the bottom-right to place a little key and a box for your logo, map title, scale bar, as opposed to top-left where you have them.
6. Are the medium size rivers made of two lines? Such as Ytkin? Make them one line, different stoke size maybe, but if they are so small to the scale of them map, not much gained from showing double lines so closely.

I really like the style (colors, fonts)!

Thanks for sharing!

[Matthew Hampton]

Very nice work!

Aside from not having a legend the few things that jump to my mind relate to they hydro features. The darker blue stroke (outline) you have on the smaller rivers make them look like different features and not part of the hydro set. If they had a stroke color that matched the fill i think it would look better. You might also consider using a different font (serif) for hydro, although you present font choice looks clean and understandable. Getting picky, I would tweak the Sudakan River placement a little so that it flows a little better between words.

The floating land fragments next to Anastana Island look a little awkward to me - but I was raised in a landlocked area.

[François Goulet]

The floating land fragments next to Anastana Island look a little awkward to me - but I was raised in a landlocked area.

Those look like anthropic features... Could need a lable or two!

[Michael Schmeling]

I really like the map. Beautifully done, very nice! I would only get rid of the grid, because it distracts.

[kay]

Excellent work!! I really like the combination of the colours on your map!

Can I ask you which application/software you used ??

-kay

[Dennis McClendon]

Well, as a piece of cartography, it’s certainly handsome enough.

But here are a few geographic things to ponder, which perhaps illustrate why it’s more difficult to do a map of a fictional place than a real one.

• The place appears to be a flat delta, but there’s little logic to which watercourses cut all the way through. For instance, the link from Nevhat Bay to Scasban Lake to Garlin Lake to the Badakan River appears to be all at sea level.
• Think about how streams are generally named. The Antre never reaches the sea, but instead has a different name (Norakan or Sudakan) as it flows around the three main islands. This seems unlikely.
• Think about how placenames are usually given. There should be a few instances of $PLACENAME-Nord or Nieuw-$PLACENAME. There should be a central district called Zentrum or Dolton City. There should be a couple with “port” as part of the name.
• What is the nature of the topography through which the Edano and Urbintal Rivers flow? Their courses suggest that it’s flat. Why then, would the motorway, S-bahn, and roadways seem so constricted in this area? Why wouldn’t settlement creep further inland?
• Motorways large enough to have interchanges wouldn’t have a mere traffic circle where two of them cross south of Astall.
• Where is the industrial and port facility? If it’s at the east end of Dolton Island, where are the railways?
• The districts are very small, with a different name every 1000 meters across on average. Similarly, the S-bahn stops are awfully close together. Why is there S-bahn service to Nessel but not to the much larger Astall? No Regionalbahn service on the mainland at all?
• What kind of places are Nessel and Lier that they have development 200 meters back from the highways but no interior streets?
• With all the empty farmland, why is the airport only a single runway?

Just things to think about. You had fun drawing it, and I had fun trying to imagine the landscape by interpreting it.

[whiters]

Thank you all for kind words and constructive criticism. I really appreciate your attention.

About some repeated questions and remarks. I use Illustrator. I agree some hydro labels could be placed more carefully. I like grid as measuring tool and try to make it not dominating. Legend is thing to be.

6. Are the medium size rivers made of two lines? Such as Ytkin? Make them one line, different stoke size maybe, but if they are so small to the scale of them map, not much gained from showing double lines so closely.

No, it's single line. I tried proposing variant, but if filling color (blue) is used river becames hardly visible. If I use border color (dark blue) river looks very stressed. So I mixed both, although on other maps I did as you said.

The floating land fragments next to Anastana Island look a little awkward to me - but I was raised in a landlocked area.

It's artificial mole to protect island from breaking waves

Well, as a piece of cartography, it’s certainly handsome enough.

But here are a few geographic things to ponder, which perhaps illustrate why it’s more difficult to do a map of a fictional place than a real one.

• The place appears to be a flat delta, but there’s little logic to which watercourses cut all the way through. For instance, the link from Nevhat Bay to Scasban Lake to Garlin Lake to the Badakan River appears to be all at sea level.
• Think about how streams are generally named. The Antre never reaches the sea, but instead has a different name (Norakan or Sudakan) as it flows around the three main islands. This seems unlikely.
• Think about how placenames are usually given. There should be a few instances of $PLACENAME-Nord or Nieuw-$PLACENAME. There should be a central district called Zentrum or Dolton City. There should be a couple with “port” as part of the name.
• What is the nature of the topography through which the Edano and Urbintal Rivers flow? Their courses suggest that it’s flat. Why then, would the motorway, S-bahn, and roadways seem so constricted in this area? Why wouldn’t settlement creep further inland?
• Motorways large enough to have interchanges wouldn’t have a mere traffic circle where two of them cross south of Astall.
• Where is the industrial and port facility? If it’s at the east end of Dolton Island, where are the railways?
• The districts are very small, with a different name every 1000 meters across on average. Similarly, the S-bahn stops are awfully close together. Why is there S-bahn service to Nessel but not to the much larger Astall? No Regionalbahn service on the mainland at all?
• What kind of places are Nessel and Lier that they have development 200 meters back from the highways but no interior streets?
• With all the empty farmland, why is the airport only a single runway?

Just things to think about. You had fun drawing it, and I had fun trying to imagine the landscape by interpreting it.

1.Yes, it’s flat delta, but swampy area, partly drained and made suitable for construction and living. Such watercourses are usual for this kind of deltas (Volga, Orinoco, Niger, Lena etc). In this case we can suppose Budokan River with chain of lakes as old riverbed of Antre.

2.It’s normal – one arm of Antre is named as Norakan, another is Sudakan. Dilamo, Dolton and Anastana isles can be considered as one landmass. Dividing rivers are artificial channels to help in island draining.

3.Yes, you’re right. But maybe it’s better to have more original names than doubles?

4.Swampy area. All roads run through possible corridor. Each of them serves own function.

5.Sorry, I didn’t get what you mean - one interchange is enough for Astall?

6.Almost all industrial facilities have railways. Ports too. (thin grey lines)

7.It’s small for districts with detached houses . S-bahn stops marked with “C” (average distance between stations 1.2-1.5 km is metro-like), LRT stops marked with “L” (distance smaller, but it’s common), Commuter train stops marked with “S”. Unfortunately Astall lies off the railways. Regional services actually presents on all main lines (see railway map of whole country)

8.Nessel and Liar are small villages with population less than 1 ths. people.

9.Dolton area is not large by population (c. 500 000 people), so one runway is enough, but things change and empty area close to runway is reserved for future extension.

Thank you, Dennis, for such attentive and detailed examination.
I invite you and all forumers to see other my maps of different kinds and styles (urban areas, detailed street maps, transit diagrams, road atlas and others)

[MapMedia]

Andrew - thanks for the link to your site - intriguing.

Is geofiction a hobby? The fictional lands you create sound Scandinavian in origin - what is story behind your maps?
What tools do you use?

[whiters]

Andrew - thanks for the link to your site - intriguing.

Is geofiction a hobby? The fictional lands you create sound Scandinavian in origin - what is story behind your maps?
What tools do you use?

Yes, I like geofiction, mostly maps and transportation issues. Other features of geofiction, such as constructed language, history and others things I invent to draw maps more realistically.

I didn’t think about detailed history of Norscand yet, but I suppose this is emigrant country (on earthlike planet). That’s why placenames have different roots.

As for Scandinavian origin… I just like this northern European region, its nature, I feel my soul there. But it would be better to take more neutral name.

Almost all maps is drawn in Illustrator. As database I use Excel files.