World Building Blog

GENERAL UPDATE

Well, it’s one of those times. “Those times” being when “I’ve been struggling with getting any art, design, ‘or anything, really’ done because I’m a total perfectionist and it’s so much easier to just spend forever researching +/- 37 different things simultaneously” (ranging, of course, from how pteradons fly to the best way to scientifically (and most painfully) determine exactly where in a particular binary star system the life zone – a.k.a habitable zone or Goldilocks zone – would fall).

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WORLDS OF SAND

Fortunately, I’ve been insanely fortunate enough to be selected as a finalist-interviewee – a writing position – for an indie game company currently working on their first big project, which happens to be based on some of my favorite themes/genres, movies, game-types, etc. The company is Starboard Games L.L.C. (links tp FB page) and the game is called INT (short for Interstellar). While this blog has been primarily about art, design, and more “visual-creative” projects, I’ve been world building – and creating languages – for years now (almost a decade, and that’s not counting the totally-uneducated attempts I made back in middle school).

In the interest of not only continuing to explore those areas of interest but also to get all the research I’ve done and ideas I’ve been exploring out there to share and discuss with other people, I’ve decided that now is a great time to start a blog specifically for world-building and all that goes into that (or can, at least)! Taking the first step applying for this writing job has been a great push forward towards the blog, but whatever happens with the job itself – all power to them, the idea sounds great – I’m looking forward to writing again. Well, writing in a “public forum” and getting feedback and having discussions, anyway. All the writing I’ve been doing recently has been kept … under wraps, so to speak.

Perhaps I’ve reached a kind of “critical mass” in terms of the amount of information I’ve amassed. Now it’s time to actually make use of it all, even if I end up just sharing it and helping others use it for their own epic ends.

 

Therafim Update

*NOTE: THIS IMAGE FILE IS EXTREMELY LARGE*
(I’ve posted such a large image file in order to send the highest resolution file I have to the commissioner.)

This is another map commission I took several months ago that has, unfortunately, taken far too long to really get underway. This is, in part, due to my lack of experience with CC3 (Campaign Cartographer 3), and partly due to my regular inability to overcome any failure I experience when using the program. It’s also frustrating that I have to place symbols “front to back” and it’s exceptionally difficult to select and send anything behind something else; there isn’t even an option to bring something forward! The lack of (good) documentation is also a serious problem for me, although the video tutorials on YouTube have been pretty helpful.

Setting aside that little rant, I have, fortunately, managed to reach a point where work on this map is going fairly smoothly, if a little slowly. In the interest of ensuring nothing is just slap-dash-edly placed in an effort to get things down “somewhere”, I confess to spending a fair amount of time laying down symbols and then deleting all or most and starting over again once I get the general layout and placement the way I want it.

So far no labels, but the entire northern ‘pole’ (“Rimevast”) is complete, and as you can see I’ve added in a single city on the northeastern-most continent (“Autumn Land”); it’s supposed to be due south from the city just north on Rimevast, so I thought I’d drop it in now.

Next step is Autumn Land, followed by … whatever continent/landmass I take a shine to after that. Labels will be added last since most of them are actually fairly easy to remember.

 

Wo0t Maps!

Okay, that sounds really hyper-active far-side-of-the-moon can’t-find-my-brain (yeah, that’s a ‘zero’ in the title), but let me explain:

After avoiding drawing and even art in general for almost a year or so, I’ve been getting back into it. Over the past few months, I’ve picked up a couple commissions for illustrating maps of fictional worlds, and even created the front cover of an RPG manual (just a home-brew RPG by a group of friends down in Argentina, but it’s not a map! And they just signed off on the front cover and are hoping I can do the front pages of the Bestiary and Herbs sections of the manual (^o^)v ). Okay, so doesn’t sound like much of an achievement to warrant leek-speak (or leet-speak, for that matter), but effectively finishing one of the first major maps I took the commission for and finishing that RPG manual cover and finishing another map (okay, I feel done, but the commissioner has to sign off on it) AND getting not one, but two paid commissions from some truly excellent people … Now all of that is definitely enough to encourage a little slip in spelling and grammar.

Now, I’ve been asked to not share the RPG manual cover by the commissioner, but I can share the 2 maps I’ve just finished (okay, okay, as far as I know they’re finished):

Drawn for Matt Hoffman (Technospiritualist at the Cartographers’ Guild forums). He’s working on a novel, the first draft of which he’s almost done with (!), and this map is of the ‘world’ of the story.

This one was done for another novelist, Steve Pote (Blahman919 at the Cartographer’s Guild forums). He provided a rough hand-drawn map, which I essentially ‘traced over’ in Photoshop to ensure that everything was placed properly. The lighter lines … Hah. Are roads, which I need to label. Now I see that. Well, other than that, the map is done, as far as I know.

And in the interest of branching, here’s a small sketch I did earlier today. It’s actually part of a larger, image, but …

To see the whole image you’ll have to check out my new website, 99 Colored Umbrellas ! (I know, original, how original!) It’s still under construction, but you’ll find that image there, so check it out ^-^!