Mappa mundi

April 2017

(Slight warning – lots of text follows)

I am no scientist, geologist, meteorologist or archaeologist. And I certainly am no cartographer. What I am however is curious about stuff, and slightly obsessive once a new idea has rooted itself. Which is why sometimes stupid and extremely geeky projects appear when you least expect it.

What once started off as a failed paper craft bauble (which itself was a curious experiment and minor obsession), went much later on to have some random lines drawn on it that quite quickly in turn became continents. It all went downhill after that.

What if…?

And just so you know… my normal job title isn’t “world builder” either, but that doesn’t stop me from having a go. I did try to think of this world/planet in a scientific manner, starting small with the outlines of the continents and building up from there. Even so, not everything is scientifically accurate. Some things were definitely driven more by imagination.

For all I know, this might be the planet where all my strange creatures and plants come from. It seems a logical assumption.

Enjoy (or not) while we wait for “proper” art to happen.

Thoughts and comments about the different steps:
Continents --> Developed the original squiggles on my failed paper craft bauble. Some digital re-sizing necessary to get a good land-to-sea-ratio.
Latitudes / Distances --> In my imagination this is a smaller world than our Earth. The equator is ¾ of ours, so its surface area is just a little more than half. As a comparison, our neighbour Mars’ surface area is about 28% that of Earth’s.
The major mountain ranges (illustrative style) --> This is where imagination held quite tightly of the steering wheel. Was thinking a lot about all my drawings and stories and their possible geography.
The biggest rivers and lakes --> Not much effort here. Lots of countries have lots of lakes and rivers but looking at a satellite photo of the entire world not a lot of them actually show up, even the biggest ones. My interpretation is definitely more fantasy than reality here.
Ocean depths --> A no brainer really, shallow by the coast and in bays and deep further out. I guess the interesting part here was thinking about the exact depth and what would be a “normal” figure. 
Tectonics -->First of many interesting challenges. Both plates, earthquake zones and volcanism go hand in hand. Just got to remember to put a few “fire mountains” inland as well.
Ocean currents --> Wikipedia and charts were a great help into learning more about how currents work and in which way they move. Still my interpretation is not 100%.
Basic climate zones --> Trying to keep it fairly simple compared to all of the climate maps I looked at for reference. Also hard to keep in mind that ocean currents, wind patterns and placement of mountain ranges all play their part in climate zones and not just the latitude.
Human migration --> Another difficult but fun challenge, 'cause it conjures up so many follow-up questions about origin, migration patterns and how long ago things would be plausible. Again, tried to keep it fairly simple compared with what it’s like in reality.
First farming areas --> It keeps ramping up, doesn’t it? At this point I think it’s more guesswork than facts. However an interesting fact about our reality is that farming did evolve separate of each other on several places at about the same time.
Present day populated areas + common trade routes --> People tend to build settlements and cities near bodies of water or other exploitable commodities. Whether it’s reality or fantasy can’t matter much here. Tried not to make the world too crowded though. The trading route-map was much more complicated and detailed at first but it developed too much text so I had to pull back and make something a little more simple and truncated.
True colours + close-ups of map segments --> A go at trying to make the map into a “satellite” image. This was the part that took longest time of all by far and was the most difficult to get right. And I’m not even sure I managed that. Lots of looking at atlases and learning what all the brushes in PS could do. Also learned a new trick in making mountain range texture.

There are lots of topics that could be added to the map – like movements of the tectonic plates, more of human history, cultural developments, country borders, names of continents and cities and other places. But I think I’ll leave that for another day.

The original digital working file is much larger of course. I downsized to about 30 % for the sake of both the size of the map project and the fact that I’m not a digital artist. My digital details do not bear the same scrutiny in that of my traditional works.

(Mainly) digital work. Photoshop CS2 + mouse + patience.

October/November 2016 to April 2017, made completely at work during uneventful hours.
(No job assignment or task was ever compromised by this little big project. All deadlines was kept and everything possible was taken care of.)