Cartography - Intro into drawing

One of the many fields growing in the realm of G.I.S. is Cartography and visualization of maps in an artistic way. Here at Ball State, we have spent a lot of time on the theory and rules of color and learning the system involved with creating these masterpieces. In the post, I hope to give an update on the software and I use and some of the images that I have produced.

Naturally, the best software to use for any detail map making is Adobe Illustrator. The reason for Illustrator is that it uses vector graphics, which appear clean and crisp on paper and on computer monitors. It also allows for an almost infinite amount of color choices to be used on the maps. Starting out in my career of working with Illustrator, I have been exposed to several different techniques for organizing the structure of my work using layers and grids.

Example 1.)

While not a difficult drawing, it has been very helpful in teaching us to keep our lines straight and in order using the grid system. It also has shown us how to add different styles and layouts of text. Another important thing this taught me was the value of separating everything out into different layers. When i finished this drawing, I had a layer for the: Title, Percentages, Numbers, Boxes, and Box fills. Keeping these all separate allows for me to independently change each variable without affecting the other aspects of the drawing.

Example 2.)

Another example of a drawing I have done is an origami bird. This bird not only taught me how to create a popping image using gradient colors, but also in organizing and separating the different layers of the drawing. If you notice there are three separate sections of the bird: a section close to the viewer, half way from the viewer and the furthest from the viewer. Obviously the wing that is closest to the viewer would need to have the highest view in order on the layer list. The mid section would be placed in the middle of the layer view and then the wing in the back ground would be placed towards the bottom for lowest visibility.
After organizing the layers, drawing the bird is just a simple trace from the origami photo provided. Tracing is a very easy method as you just have to set and lock the templet layer and then create a separate layer in which to draw on. The actual drawing itself using the pen tool was not very difficult.

Example 3.)

While the layer set up was actually very easy, the drawing itself was challenging. The objective of this challenge is to teach smooth curves utilizing the pen tool. As you can tell there are very little straight lines in relation to the origami bird in the previous example. So feeling out where to place nodes for the best possible outcome of a smooth line is key. The challenge really began when trying to create the fin on the back. If you can tell, there are two curves back to back with a change in direction midway through. For some reason, this area caused the most kinks when trying to make smooth curves due to this. After several tries and headaches, smooth curves were finally yielded leaving a very smooth drawing.

Example 4.)

Obviously, this drawing is more complicated than the other three drawings which utilizes all skills taught. In the design of the fish, each component has to be separated into different layers. I just did the essentials such as: head, fins, scales, body, and tail. Arranging them into a certain order (especially the whiskers) gives the desired effect of how it is supposed to look. When adding the colors to the fish, I decided to go with a more tropical look. I used a lot of reds/oranges/purples/blues to give the tropical fish look. For the head, I used a radial gradient to give the effect that his head is round. For the body I did a linear gradient, which is pretty standard stuff. difficulties arose when trying to figure out the tail. I ended up doing a colorless sketch inside the tail and separate gradient to give the effect that the top part of the tail is bending over. From there, I finished the rest of the tail off with a separate gradient to bring it all together.


Overall, with a sound knowledge of color and the inner workings of Illustrator, I'm positive I'll be able to keep up with this class and provide artistically and accurate maps further along. In my next update, I'll provide images and info on my map creations. Thanks for following!