I've been working on this a while and, whilst it will undoubtedly be updated as new businesses feature in my stories, it is at a relatively stable point to share. The blank areas might need some woodland or minor agricultural graphical enhancement but I'll see how that goes.
I've allocated village addresses to all my villagers! Well, those that actually live in the village. Those out in the county (e.g. those at Timbertop Farm, Blackberry Orchards, Buttercup Dalry, the Cornflower family) and those in Upper Mellowdene are excluded (but they know where they are).
To tie in with the map, on my blog I've created a "Residences" tab that documents where my villagers live. There are empty houses for newcomers to inhabit (or to allow critters to move house) and buildings for the aforementioned future businesses and retail outlets.
It's taken a while to get this far. Hopefully I've caught all the throwaway lines in my stories that identify families as neighbours and that will be reflected in their addresses. If you spot any inconsistencies then please let me know. House moves are very efficient in Mellowdene!
Wow, that is so cool, Jackson! It must have taken a lot of work...!
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing! I'm so curious as to the process of making it. Did you use a particular program?
ReplyDeleteThank you, Amy!
DeleteI started drawing the map by hand on cream paper, covering the area between the docks and the village green and as far down as Cherry Blossom Avenue. This was to clarify in my mind the relative positions of certain locations for a particular story.
I then decided to scan it into my computer. I have a program called Xara Designer that evolved from a purely vector drawing program to add some Photoshop like elements. I drew white shapes to create roads, gradually extending them as the map grew. Little tan coloured rectangles given a slight contour represented the buildings. These were copied and resized as necessary. The foliage was mainly copied and pasted from my original scan. Other elements, such as text and custom shapes for fields and the reservoir were added as I went along.
The placement of a few particular businesses and residences of main characters was done by referring back to my stories. This took a while as I didn't want inconsistencies. I should have stopped there but I decided to give specific addresses to all the critters that lived in my village. I knew I was perhaps obsessing but I felt that it would be a great foundation for future stories.
I know precisely where it is placed upon Sylvanako's unofficial but wonderful map of Sylvania, and how it connects to Mellowdene County and the villages of other Collectors. It's been a long job but I'm happy with the time I've spent.
This is amazing, Jackson! It looks so real and professional, too. I love that you cross-referenced your stories to make sure everything made sense. Another wonderful contribution to the logic of the inner workings of Mellowdene. I love how you develop all these things in such detail. Wonderful work!
ReplyDeleteWhat an outstanding Map of Mellowdene! Ayrell is right: it looks like an existing place in reality and like a map you could buy at the stationary shop... It definitely inspires me to try my hand on something similar for Purrchester. :clap: :clap: :clap:
ReplyDelete