Friendly Mapmaking Challenge - Everyone Welcome!

[natty dread]

Friendly Mapmaking Challenge

Everyone is welcome to participate! In a nutshell, this is a friendly challenge to all mapmakers or aspiring mapmakers to create a map of a certain pre-chosen location.


The purpose:

- I'm not offering any prizes here, nor is a winner (or loser) going to be declared. This thing is purely for fun.
- The purpose is to practice your skills, experiment with new techniques, compare styles and tricks with others and maybe learn new things in the process.
- This is supposed to be a friendly event, so let's keep it civil. Constructive criticism on other people's work is of course allowed, but no overly nasty comments, ok? Even if you think someone's work sucks, try to keep in mind the friendly spirit of the event.

Ok, here's how it works:

- Everyone is free to participate, no matter your skill level, number of maps made (if any), age, gender, social status, etc.
- The idea is to take the map I post, trace it and create your own graphical representation of it - not a playable map, just a plain, nice, pretty map image.
- The graphical style of the map is up to you. It doesn't have to be hugely accurate either, and you can decide what features you want to include.
- In the spirit of this event, it's recommended to make your map image the same, or close to same size as the original traceable map image. Having some constraints adds to the challenge of the event.
- There is no strict deadline for participation, but it'd be nice if everyone could post their work within a week from this post.
- You are free to submit multiple entries. You can also modify your entries and post multiple versions of them, or post early versions and ask for opinions.
- I'd prefer each entry to be made by a single person. The point is to challenge your personal skills, so collaborations can wait for another event.


The map to be traced:

For this event, I have chosen a map of Kaliningrad Oblast (an exclave of Russia) to be the subject. I've chosen a compact-sized map for tracing, which shows a lot of features, but like said, you can choose which ones to include.

The whole Kaliningrad Oblast should be shown in your map image. Note that the purple line is the border of the actual Oblast, the rest is neighbouring countries. Thematically you can do whatever you want with it, as long as the Kaliningrad Oblast is shown in the map in whole.


Here is the traceable image:

[bigimg]http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3733/kaliningrad.png[/bigimg]

Direct link to the image: http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3733/kaliningrad.png


So without further ado, good luck to all participants. Let's see some interesting, funny, impressive, weird, beautiful and creative artwork. And above all,

Have fun!

[koontz1973]

This is what we need right now. Something fun. Great idea natty. Might be the best here but will give this a go. Will post an image next week sometime.

[thenobodies80]

I have a couple of question:
Any size limit?
The map should represent the whole area or just part of it? (i dont' mean the features on the map but instead the land area that we can represent)
It has to be just a representation of the area or we can set a time period, add a theme, some spice,flavour to the map?

Thanks in advance for the answers
Nobodies

[natty dread]

Any size limit?

I haven't set a strict size limit, but:

- In the spirit of this event, it's recommended to make your map image the same, or close to same size as the original traceable map image. Having some constraints adds to the challenge of the event.

The map should represent the whole area or just part of it? (i dont' mean the features on the map but instead the land area that we can represent)

The whole area of Kaliningrad Oblast. You can crop out the extra that is outside the borders of the Oblast in the image, but the whole Oblast should be shown.

It has to be just a representation of the area or we can set a time period, add a theme, some spice,flavour to the map?

Thematically you can do whatever you want. Be creative!

[natty dread]

Ok, to get this thing rolling, here's something I've put together - it's nothing special, just riffin' on different textures and stuff.

It features cities and major roads.

[bigimg]http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/7642/kaliningrad1.png[/bigimg]

[DiM]

i traced the map then it all took a communist poster turn and i got this:

[natty dread]

That's great! Stretching the size a lot, but looks real nice.

[DiM]

i didn't even notice you said we should keep roughly the same size.

[natty dread]

That's ok, it's more of a recommendation than a strict requirement

[aad0906]

Somebody should do a Koenigsberg map, the capital of East Prussia...

[natty dread]

Somebody should do a Koenigsberg map, the capital of East Prussia...

Ok, that sounds like a neat idea, but you should post it in the map ideas forum, this thread is for the mapmaking challenge.

[DiM]

Somebody should do a Koenigsberg map, the capital of East Prussia...

Ok, that sounds like a neat idea, but you should post it in the map ideas forum, this thread is for the mapmaking challenge.

yeah, let's keep this strictly for posting our images and discussing techniques.

[ManBungalow]

Cool, I've never used the Qbist function before. Doesn't look like I'll be using it again in a rush, but all the same:



Ready for quench ?

[natty dread]

I've never used the Qbist function either. I'm not even sure what it does...

Oh. According to the docs, it creates random patterns. Neat, maybe that can be used for something...

[Victor Sullivan]

This is why I don't do graphics



Just screwed around with filters

-Sully

[koontz1973]

This is why I don't do graphics



Just screwed around with filters

-Sully

And that is all the beginnings of maps. Screwing around till something clicks. Keep on doing it sully and one day you might get a quench.

[natty dread]

You forgot the in.

[DiM]

what are you using sully?
i don't recognize those filters.

[MrBenn]

what are you using sully?
i don't recognize those filters.

Looks a bit like difference clouds with colour filters on top?

[DiM]

what are you using sully?
i don't recognize those filters.

Looks a bit like difference clouds with colour filters on top?

difference clouds are nice. that actually looks awful. or maybe he added a lot of grain then blurred everything...

[Victor Sullivan]

what are you using sully?
i don't recognize those filters.

Looks a bit like difference clouds with colour filters on top?

difference clouds are nice. that actually looks awful. or maybe he added a lot of grain then blurred everything...

-Sully

[natty dread]

Well, nothing that adding some MORE filters couldn't fix!

[bigimg]http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6153/kali2b.png[/bigimg]

[natty dread]

Here's something fun I wanted to try.

[bigimg]http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/7075/kali3.png[/bigimg]

[natty dread]

You know... because Kaliningrad is part of Russia... and Tetris was made in Russia... and... well, it made sense at the time!

[DiM]

You know... because Kaliningrad is part of Russia... and Tetris was made in Russia... and... well, it made sense at the time!

is that a preset/filter/action/mask? or did you draw it?
i'm talking about the tetris image.

PS: is nobody else going for this challenge?