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I'm working up a historical starmap for a fan fiction project, with data adapted from Star Trek, and stylistic cues from the old Dent's Canadian/School Atlas' front half material, which was usually produced in black and white with usage of tones and/or spot colours. This is intended to be ink-usage-friendly for other fans' purposes. I expect to creative derivative works devoted to marking systems particularly notable for "key" resources specific to that mythology, and possibly other spin-offs as well.

I'm working in Affinity Designer 1.10.6 because that's as far as my hardware and budget will currently allow.

I guess I'm looking for additional "tone"/"Style" resources that may be particularly useful for this project. If you have any recommendations...?

Screen Shot 2023-07-19 at 6.44.12 PM.png

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I tried doing a search for “Dent's Canadian/School Atlas'” but I have no idea if any of the results I got back would be relevant to what you are trying to produce.

If you are looking for advice about “tone” and “style” then you need to give us at least one visual example of what you are trying to reproduce, otherwise we are just guessing.

Also, if you can tell us what you mean by “ink-usage-friendly” then that would be helpful.

The more details you give us the better we can help.
The fewer details you give us the more we have to guess and the longer it will take for you to get an answer that is useful.

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On 7/19/2023 at 6:58 PM, DEWLine said:

I'm working up a historical starmap for a fan fiction project, with data adapted from Star Trek, and stylistic cues from the old Dent's Canadian/School Atlas' front half material, which was usually produced in black and white with usage of tones and/or spot colours. This is intended to be ink-usage-friendly for other fans' purposes. I expect to creative derivative works devoted to marking systems particularly notable for "key" resources specific to that mythology, and possibly other spin-offs as well.

I'm working in Affinity Designer 1.10.6 because that's as far as my hardware and budget will currently allow.

I guess I'm looking for additional "tone"/"Style" resources that may be particularly useful for this project. If you have any recommendations...?

 

Looks good. If you're staying with black and white, then perhaps you can consider different lined patterns for the zones. That will add some variety. Example:

image.png.82a1b703a3439ff2b3b9871a4a33cb06.png

 

Also, the red line looks hand drawn and a little wobbly. I'd use some type of bezier curve to get a smoother effect. 

For the planets/stars, varying their size could also add some more visual interest. 

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Update on progress...
@TrentL The text box I've since added is meant to imply/explain that my focus here is on history, not astrography. This map is meant as an adjunct to a work of fan fiction designed as a historical text. The "Romulan Neutral Zone" line - like most of the positions of star systems and bases depicted - is meant to mirror the material I'm sourcing, specifically Star Trek: Star Charts and Star Trek: Stellar Cartography (Second Edition). Yes, that border was hand-corrected to match it as well.

As for the cluster/nebula zones, I have a limited number of suitable Styles to work with here. I would like to get my hands on a wider range of such Styles for further experimentation.

EoM-DisputedZone-21July2023.png

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Further update...
Needs a lot more work, yes. I figured out from the cues in various episodes of the series and licensed works from which I've been deriving clues that...well, the area I needed to address is bigger than I thought it was. Also, changed up symbology choice for nebulae and clusters.

EoM-DisputedZone-29July2023-C.png

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