Researching the Map: Middle Earth

The next thing I wanted to do before writing the comic, was to come up with a world map. I felt this was very important as making the map will allow people to see the world, understand the characters journey's, and help us write and get new ideas by writing stories that allow the characters to travel through and show off the landscape of particular landmarks.

So the first element of research was J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth Map. There is the official one (below) and many fans construction of the wider world the Middle Earth is in via heavy reading of the J. R. R. Tolkien Novels (further below). So what does this map do well?

Key. Though it does not contain a key, it is still easy to identify mountain ranges, forests, paths and rivers through the style of illustration being different for each; for example, the paths are a dotted line and this makes the eye understand the line as a path, rather than a border, as with the small bubbling circles that mean forests. It also is extremely well thought out, with everywhere having a name. I also like how the text is written curved onto the page, to fit the map and the size of the writing relates to the lass mass it represents. The scale meter on the official map helps audiences get a scale of the world, and the tea-stained paper background always visually aids fantasy maps by ageing them.

What I find helps this map, for me, is that its easy to visualise. Because of the Lord of the Rings films and Hobbit films, and the Shadow of Mordor and War in the North video games, looking at a place name instantly familiarises the setting and what it looks like. And if you don't, you can google a place name and instantly see. This map I feel has gotten better due to the success of the Lord of the Rings franchise that has helped it visually come to life.