Things I Love Thursday: Find Something That Lets You Lose Track of Time

Well I am running a little late today. And you know what I can tell you exactly why. I have long been a fan of the channel Artifexian on YouTube. A channel of world building and conlanging; it is so much fun and very nerdy. Well last February he started a series on creating atlas style maps using a vector program. After a few videos he had thoroughly convinced me through demonstration that a vector program would be an indispensable tool.

I tried to follow the tutorial, but he uses Adobe Illustrator and I got Inkscape. there are some differences in placement and function. Plus I needed time to become more familiar with the program. So I sort of fell off my attempts and turned to other things. I did continue using Inkscape though and practiced with making things like coloring pages for my niece.

Well this week I came to a place in the story I am writing where I really needed a city map for reference. So I decided to open Inkscape to help me with that. There are two major waterways, so I started with trying to mark those tout roughly. I remembered Artifexian covered creating rivers in one of his atlas videos. I pulled it up for reference and before I knew it I had decided it was time to try the whole process again. So today and yesterday I have been studying the process and creating test maps to learn on.

And today I completely lost track of time. I really enjoy the process of creating the different land mass levels. It's just feels very zen for me. Much like the first time I put pintucks on a skirt. It looks very involved and tedious, but once I was doing it I just relaxed into a state of happy work. So yeah apparently I enjoy creating maps. I hope you can find something that does this for you. It feels so good.