Geomorphically "Correct" Art, Part Two

Steve Gough over at Riparian Rap has an ongoing series of geomorphically "incorrect" artwork. In that vein, I'm producing some maps for my pal Kelly McCullough's new book series (coming out in December BTW).

I thought I'd share some of the maps. It's fun playing "what if" in terms of landscape geology. Plus, it gives me a chance to exercise my drawing skills:
(click to embiggen)

Here's the "world" map - the biggest challenge was keeping the countries and cities in the same location relative to each other (determined by the author), while portraying the geomorphic features in a reasonably accurate fashion. That involved placing the rivers in patterns that showed proper downstream morphologies and drainage patterns, coastal features that reflected some river/shoreline processes, and adding a different kind of "mountain" range to the northwestern area of the map. I thought placing some Karst towers would be something different, compared to the mountains that are usually drawn.

(click to embiggen)

The city map (in progress), has to balance a sense of urban development history (old neighborhoods, new ones springing up and gentrified areas) superimposed onto a landscape that had some plot-relevant hills. I placed some neighborhoods on river terraces to to justify the higher hill tops (left behind as the river eroded downward).

Geomorphically "Correct" Art, Part One

Among my various side-projects, I've been drafting a map for my friend and awesome author, Kelly McCullough. He's working on a new series, set in a far-away land (TM). One of the challenges for the map was a forested area, surrounded by rivers. There was also a mountain jutting out from the middle of the forest. Adding to the complexity, the region is bound by mountain ranges. The trick was to combine these features into a visual representation that looked good, but also didn't obviously break any "rules" regarding how landscapes evolve and relate to each other:


At some point, once the first book is published, I'll revisit more of the features, including how I managed to fit country and city names into these features, without making any one piece too hard to read.

This post was inspired by Riparian Rap's "Geomorphically Incorrect Art" series. I've always looked at fantasy maps as serving two masters. First, it needs to supply the necessary elements that enhance the storyline. Second, it has to contain sufficient realism so as not to destroy the readers' suspension of disbelief. If the map looks like it depicts a real place, the story benefits. If the map looks like it was thrown together by someone who wasn't there, the story suffers. The maps in J.R.R. Tolkien's books are examples of the former - even though they aren't always geomorphically plausible, they have a sense of place and history that serves the tale.