Current location:	Siegen
Current mood:	content
Current music:	SWR3
Entry tags:	annual, cartography, mapsandmore, profantasy

Exercises in early-modern cartography
So this is my initiation into the not-so-secret society of bloggers. I knew I would not be able to withstand the temptation indefinitely. At least I can use it for a little preview of upcoming Mapsandmore/ProFantasy stuff.

In preparation for the subscription product Simon mentions in his blog, I have been experimenting with recreating the style of Gerard Mercator's 16th century maps.

This is the map I came up with as it appears in CC2 or CC3 with effects turned off.



It includes several new png bitmap fills (for the dark paper, blue ocean and land backgrounds). The wavy pattern on the ocean is a new symbol fill (reduced to at a smaller scale around the coasts), and 8 new symbols were created for this map (4 hills, 3 mountains and three city symbols).

It is not bad as it is already, but the real thing is revealed, if you turn on the effects in CC3:



Black glows, transparencies, slight blurs and most importantly the "edge fade" effect for the political boundaries, transform the appearance of the map.

Here is a close-up view of a little section:



I hope you like it.