Designing the Map - Stage 2

 Stage 2

In this stage I wanted to add different variations to the silhouette of the map. This was to get a basic idea of the sizes and layouts of the different continents, and figure out where the north are invading from.

Stage 2: Map 1

This idea took the basis on stage 1, map 1's layout and started to consider forests, rivers, train tracks and which areas had already been infiltrated by the North. 

 Stage 2: Map 2

After deciding Stage 2: Map 1 was too plain, I came up with giving the south more islands, and extending the size of West and East. What I didn't feel was working was the size of the North. It just didn't look fearsome and dangerous enough.

Stage 2: Map 3

Here I connected the North to more land therefore making it bigger. This I feel helped it but the overall silhouette still wasn't working for me. It looked to symmetrical to be natural.

Stage 2: Map 4

This idea I drew to make the North lurch over the world more menacingly, but this still had the symmetry problem. I knew the south was looking good as islands, as that also stood as a metaphor of how this place was being broken up and destroyed by the Northern armies, which was another idea that worked for me.

Stage 2: Map 5

This was by far my favourite map. I took the ideas that worked best from my previous sketches and really got involved with the story set in this place. I considered where the Northern armies where heading and had been (grey), where the characters would travel (Green- Ambam, Yellow - Akira, Brown - Bill) and even where the pirates would be. The North looked far more imposing and the over all map resembled ours enough without being the same thing. Britain I still had but decided this could be referenced more as a port or city, like the main headquarters of the North. Either-way, this was defiantly the map I wanted to move forward with.