More Panimalay

Over the last few weeks, apart from work, I have mainly been doing more world building. Panimaylay is coming along quite nicely.

Most of my endeavours have so far taken place within Photoshop, as i am currently placing “Yerp” (and it’s near regions) in the world and setting up the basic geography. Having created the world relief map of Panimaylay, when zooming in on the Yerp region it was easy to detail the major mountainous areas and determine rivers and major “forested” areas.

The relief map was a major break through from my point of view, I wanted an Atlas look to it, in my last post you may remember the style from the tutorials I followed, this worked really well, however, it was still a bit not what I was after - maybe it is due to my lack of skill rather than the fault of the method to be honest.

So I looked for a way of creating the kind of “shaded relief” we see in maps of Earth. After experimenting with adjustment levels and layer styles in Photoshop I managed to create this from a grey scale rendered DEM (digital elevation model):

blogDEM.jpg

I was quite pleased with the results. After a bit of a search on the web I found and cut up one of the large DEM  renders from NASA of the whole world and took the coastlines from the first trial, as these were quite interesting, moved some of the land masses around and then placed the DEM cuttings to form relief. I will do a video about all of this I think as it is very difficult to explain in a few typed words .. call me lazy, but I also think it would be boring to read, call me considerate too!

compositingreliefblog.jpg

(Above: Panimaylay relief map; Below: Panimaylay shaded relief)

panimalayworldmapblog.jpg

So the world map of Panimalay was created, now I sectioned of the Yerp region and began to work out the details, knowing that I could place it back in the world map accurately (I want to keep scale correct so as I “discover” things I can appropriately mark them on various maps if needed).

panimalayworldmap.jpg

As I said, the world map has helped me to place rivers, forests and thus settlements and national boundaries. The point of getting to this stage before creating the “fiction” is to give it a believability; yes the mountains are there and a river network will flow there and it is likely that a settlement would spring up there etc ..

So I am no poised to create the national and regional maps, this is going to be the long haul. I am taking key themes from “old Yerp” so I have a rough idea of broad themes for each nation or empire but I imagine I am going to be busy with it for the summer and beyond. I am free of the computer now as I have countries and nations and their relationships to each other, so I can doodle in a notebook anywhere, so I think Mrs Simpkins will be happier as will be going out willingly to places, notebook in pocket!

The next big thing on the horizon is the Warboss Tae Painting Challenge … that’s going to be a month on no mapping and more painting, but variety is, after all, the spice of life as they say.