Maps

It was now time to develop a map for the project. A map was needed so I could visually assess where places appeared. Without a map, I couldn't develop the history as logically as I wanted to, so I began this arduous task. It took me months. I started with a paper map drawn on graph paper and colored with pencils sometime in the early 90s.

 

 

As with any first effort, there were a lot of errors in this map. As I developed the concept of the Weald, I realized there weren't enough wooded areas around the Corin Mountains to hold the indigenous tribes of Erde, which had been pushed back into the Weald by the increasing strength of the OutSiders. I wanted the OutSiders to inhabit mainly the western areas of Erde, which were too compact in this rendition. Also, I decided I wanted the southern Weald to be a tropical rain forest with a large swamp at the southernmost end of it. This didn't fit the map as drawn.

I decided the mountain chain should be more centralized and the desert area in the east should be further south. I finally determined to redo the entire map - this time on the computer. Here's my second effort at the Map of Erde:

 

 

Although this was much better than the original, it still had a few flaws and was not very well drawn, at least in the details.  I used this map for about 7 years and made so many changes to it that the lettering took on a distinct blur. 

Also the map underwent a name change from Uppsala, which I had originally called it, to Erde.  I had written a title line on the first draft called Uppsala - Land of Sorrows a little below where the title appears now. The change to the simple title, Erde, was not handled very well by the map, and I found it difficult cleaning up the areas of the fill that blotched when I tried to cover the old wording with the new.  It didn't take a keen eye to see the mess I created.

This map was originally drawn on an old IBM 286 machine using a nice little paint program called Studio 8. Unfortunately, over the years the program grew legs and disappeared.  I did my best to revive it but the transition to Photoshop didn't work very well so I decided I'd take one more crack at redoing the map.

 

 

I kept the shoreline, forests, rivers, desert, and mountain areas from the 1^st computer try.  I cleaned up the fills for the land areas and especially the ocean area.  The finished map looked a lot better than the 1^st effort.

I opted for removing the silhouette of Parrsie playing her wyndlyn from a tree branch and changed out the compass for a nicer piece.  I opted for not showing city locations on this map because I wanted it to look more like a satellite shot than a standard map.  I placed the title in the lower right instead of the left.

About the only thing I might add to it in the future would be a distance scale of some sort as it's kind of hard to say how huge the area shown actually is.  It looks like it could be about the size of Australia when it's actually the size of Europe and Asia put together.