Gregory's ServerMy method for creating fictional world maps:
1) go for a walk after rain
2) take photos of drying spots on the sidewalk
3) draw over them ✨ :blobfoxfloofreach:
#worldbuilding #worldbuildingart #cartography #fictionalmaps
 69 comments
amazing how often in every sphere of life, there are some really simple elegant solutions but it takes so much time and effort and pain to find them I speak as a PhD who works on DNA sequencing  @failedLyndonLaRouchite @odoben And also blindingly obvious—once you've noticed them. Not *directly* related, but somebody (Clarke? Asimov? Sagan? Adams?) once pointed out that every breakthrough in science starts with somebody walking past a thing they've seen a thousand times before, pausing, looking closer, & thinking, "Hm. That's odd—" @cavyherd @failedLyndonLaRouchite @odoben @daico @failedLyndonLaRouchite @odoben Yes, that sounds right. I'm always charry of specific attribution, though, due to the whole [Wrong famous person quoted as saying plausible Clever Thing] thing. (Seriously, there's gotta be a word for this.)    @odoben But I love the idea of painting over photos 🤩   I did this with pizza dough stuck to the oven base circle you get a free globe shape then hehe  @odoben Look out for fresh tree stumps. Fungi can create marvelous fictional maps in wood.  Works for regional maps, but for world maps things like world's origin myth should show up in the landscape. Not necessarily tectonic shifts, ice age's signs, or continental drift (a fantasy world can do without), but stuff like where the gods fought, where a mountain was dropped on the undeserving, from where was the landscape redecorated to suit the whims of a mad god etc.   @beka_valentine @odoben @firefly The*actual* coffee foam might work for my suggestion about adding a weather satellite layer.   @odoben Next, run a bathtub with some kids foam-bath; let it settle to a thin layer, give the surface a stir and make a short movie from 30cm above. Add as a transparent layer to your map image and what do you have? A weather satellite sequence. It'd probably work with a beer and a macro lens too. @odoben my problem with this (or any other method for that matter) is map projections. the proportions are all wrong and how will i ever know how big the continents are if they are all the wrong size so i just do without the maps because i would lose my entire mind "Rabbit hole" is an entirely inadequate metaphor to truly convey the hazards of that class of problem. FWIW, my solution would be to assume Mercator, adjust the frame until it "looks right," and move on. But this is not the focus of my particular nerdery, so I definitely see where the problem would lie. #ADHD FTW @cavyherd @odoben but with mercator i would have to do so much math in order to figure out how big everything actually is, you know? like the point of having a map is i can measure travel distances, sizes of countries etc. but if i don’t have a globe so that i can actually measure these things then i have to do math! and i don’t want to do math! so i just don’t do it at all because if i handwave the whole thing entirely then i won’t get the problem with wanting everything to be mathematically accurate Whereas I would print a scan of my map onto a sheet of paper, coat the printed side with transparent acrylic medium (gloss, to be clear*), wash the paper off leaving the clear printed image, & then stretch the result over an appropriately sized sphere. (Might have to cut darts at the poles to make it work properly.) But, yes, I could definitely see myself disappearing into my belly-button on the math challenge. If I could math 😉 * heh. Pun not intended, but I'll go with it 😊  @odoben @beka_valentine One of my favorite maps started from rings left on a table by dirty breakfast dishes I'd be willing to bet that there are Actual Laws Of Physics to explain why the result is so plausible. (Which, tbc are well beyond my expertise. But I'll bet some bright soul out there could explain it.)  I suspect there may also be something in there about reaction diffusion & scales of homogeneity, but yes, definitely.  Yours is a lot better, but here's my version done quick-and-dirty in a photo processor:  this is cool! (and I took a different approach ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKQOuVwwh0k )  @odoben I usually look for original creatures in random wet spots, patterns on wood etc.  @DivineKestrel geomorphologist? fuck me, did you steal my disused geology degree?  @odoben@meow.social I wonder how accurate this would be for erosion and natural climate development because it is, well, natural drying cycles.   |
@odoben that's a fantastic idea