Continuing from Part One...
That first sprawling campaign setting map was a beautifully-hideous thing. No, I don't still have it - wish I did. As I recall, one of my "friends" at the time stole it. That map was my personal Cartography classroom.
Not surprisingly, I suppose, there was a time when I spent almost 17 years working for a mapping company. I can honestly say it was never my intention - but, it did happen. And I did learn a lot about modern mapping - some of which I do apply to my work today.
Anyway, that first map was a Frankensteinian concoction of my own crazy vision, supplemented with maps stolen from my favorite fantasy novels. There was a time when I would shop for new books by turning to the first few pages and looking for a map.
When I found maps that interested me, I would take portions of those maps that fit the one I was drawing and drop them in - partially or fully, depending on compatibility. Sometimes, I'd even keep the names. During this time, I wasn't learning much about realistic mapping, but I was discovering what made such maps evocative or exciting.
To be honest, this map didn't last long. I don't think I was even too upset when it was stolen - except that some bastard had stolen my work. I was ready to move on to better representations of my imaginary world. Ready to begin drawing maps that were entirely my own. I had been running games in my world for a couple of years and had a lot of ideas regarding what had been working well, and what had not. I was also getting into a groove of what sort of names and linguistic influences I was going with. Plus - I had received the gift of a big pad of graph paper!
I will admit, drawing a map on graph paper made me feel like I had reached an entirely new level of development. I felt almost professional at age 14. Along with the graph paper, I had acquired some very nice pencils, pens, and drafting templates. It was time to get serious. While my first map was just a frantic effort to get coastlines and borders in place, this new map started out with the main city of my game and worked outward from there. I was going to design a world of my own - with a sensible sense of scale!
This was about the time I decided that detail and verisimilitude were more important than huge tracts of weird-looking land. I'll talk about that in totally unnecessary detail next time.
That first sprawling campaign setting map was a beautifully-hideous thing. No, I don't still have it - wish I did. As I recall, one of my "friends" at the time stole it. That map was my personal Cartography classroom.
Not surprisingly, I suppose, there was a time when I spent almost 17 years working for a mapping company. I can honestly say it was never my intention - but, it did happen. And I did learn a lot about modern mapping - some of which I do apply to my work today.
Anyway, that first map was a Frankensteinian concoction of my own crazy vision, supplemented with maps stolen from my favorite fantasy novels. There was a time when I would shop for new books by turning to the first few pages and looking for a map.
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| Ah...Melnibone. |
When I found maps that interested me, I would take portions of those maps that fit the one I was drawing and drop them in - partially or fully, depending on compatibility. Sometimes, I'd even keep the names. During this time, I wasn't learning much about realistic mapping, but I was discovering what made such maps evocative or exciting.
 | |
| The world of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane. |
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| First thing I did was draw a lobster - yeah, I'm that guy. |
I will admit, drawing a map on graph paper made me feel like I had reached an entirely new level of development. I felt almost professional at age 14. Along with the graph paper, I had acquired some very nice pencils, pens, and drafting templates. It was time to get serious. While my first map was just a frantic effort to get coastlines and borders in place, this new map started out with the main city of my game and worked outward from there. I was going to design a world of my own - with a sensible sense of scale!
This was about the time I decided that detail and verisimilitude were more important than huge tracts of weird-looking land. I'll talk about that in totally unnecessary detail next time.
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