The Land of Meganeea - Map Progress #2

MEGANEEA IS ©2009 BY MARINA NEIRA.

I've made a bit of progress on the map today --added a town, a lake, a river and forests. You can click on either image to see a bigger version. Everything is infinitely small, and still it looks too big to me. I'm gonna have to try to be less detailed. Even in the close-up below it's hard to spot the little town hidden among the trees, close to the river:

MEGANEEA IS ©2009 BY MARINA NEIRA.

Nothing much to say today. I have the house to myself today because my mom went to the movies, so I'll use the opportunity to write without distractions. Not that my mom distracts me... Usually I get distracted because I want to talk to her! Ha ha...

-Marina

The Land of Meganeea - Map Progress #1

MEGANEEA IS ©2009 BY MARINA NEIRA.

Today I began to work on my first map of Meganeea. This will take a long time and even when finished it will be a kind of rough: I've thought of just a few places and landmarks I want Meganeea to have, and I will be placing those first, then creating the rest as I feel inspired, and use that finished map as a basis for drawing my own, pen-and-ink map in my usual style. It wouldn't feel right to use anything else in my books.

For those at all familiar with the story, the longer mountain range represents the Earth Dragon, and the tiny little tower on top of one of the mountains represents Davran's castle, where Soraya lives with Zad and his father. I recommend clicking on it to fully appreciate the detail. The scale is probably too big considering how vast a land Meganeea is supposed to be, but I will adjust that as I go.

The contour shapes representing mountainous areas are, too, guidelines. I have found it easier to add them in after I've placed the mountain symbols rather than before, so my method is to rough them in first, place the mountains over them, and then remove the contour shapes and redraw them to better fit my mountain ranges.

I will be adding updated versions of this map as I work on it. Stay tuned! :)

EDIT: Whoops, almost forgot to post about this. I've been adding some stuff to dA recently, and I love how this particular piece came out. Darla (along with her long-suffering, ill-humored goat Randa) is also a character from Meganeea, however she appears in one of the later books. This illustration, done in pen and ink, features them both. Just click on it for a bigger version:

Merry Stroll

by =marinaneira on deviantART

Okay, now I'm done. Happy Tuesday, everyone!

-Marina

My First Campaign Cartographer 3 Map

(PLEASE CLICK ON MAP FOR A BIGGER VERSION)

So last week I found this really cool program by ProFantasy Software, and I can't believe I didn't know it existed until now. Campaign Cartographer 3 is a program used mostly (in my understanding) by role-playing gamers, you know, Game Masters, and such people who need to make maps of the worlds or dungeons from their role-playing games. However it is also used by authors wanting to map out the worlds they've created in their books, and you guessed it: that's exactly why I'm so excited about it!

If I can map out the world I created for Meganeea from one end to the other it will not only make my writing easier but I'm sure it'll inspire me a lot. It's bound to take a long time, and what I can do with CC3, without any add-ons, is just the beginning. Eventually I'll map out the most important towns and cities with the City Designer 3 add-on as well. I may even get the Dungeon Designer 3 add-on and design floor plans for the main castles, inns and other buildings in my books.

I created the simple map above by following an excellent, lengthy tutorial by CC3 user Joseph Sweeney. I did not stray much from his tutorial so there isn't much of my own creativity or imagination put into it. I'm waiting until I get a good hang of the program, which has a rather steep learning curve, before I start working on the maps of Meganeea.

In other news, I just got a new haircut --bangs for the first time in many years. I look very different, but I guess it suits me.

I'll be posting again tomorrow with links to (and a bit of commentary on) some of the latest pieces I've added to my deviantART page.

Hope you all had a nice weekend!

-Marina