Cartography: Finalizing Your Map
You're sitting at home with a scribbled-on piece of paper; its a bit hard on the eyes you might say, but at least the dangerous part is done. Now, if you like you could be done here, but that wouldn't be too nice. How would the reader know what's what on your map? Or could they even recognize what anything is? That 'O' could be a fountain or a table or a rock or just about anything else.
To solve this little problem many cartographers add a small box somewhere on there map, called a 'legend'. This legend isn't a story about some great hero slaying some great dragon, but a collection of unique symbols thought up by a cartographer, each with a translation for what they represent. This is normaly done after observing what is in the area desired to be mapped out, and before drawing the map, but it really can be done anytime, you just need to make sure that all the elements from the map are included in this legend. The symbols included in the legend need not be beautiful, but if you want to put in your all, that never hurt anyone.
So, now you have your possibly beautiful legend thought up, your rushed map, and a brand new crisp piece of paper laid out in front of you (with the needed tools of course; pens, inks, blades, in case you need to scratch off a mistake and any other tools you deem neccessary), and I believe you know what to do next.
But for those who don't, now it is time to very carefully draw out your map, incorporating the symbols from the legend as objects. Myself, I like to do a little thinking and make a coordinate system corresponding to the size of my piece of paper, just to keep everything a little less confusing and easy to keep track of. This drawing out, while the least dangerous and decievingly simple task, is the most time consuming; taking hours and even days to do.
Now you're pondering over your map, admiring the piece of work you've made all by yourself. You think your done, don't you? Well, good news and bad news: the bad news is, you're not, but the good is that you're very close.
This is the time where you must go back, and verify that your work was all top notch. Go and make sure you didn't make any mistakes. If so, don't fret, just carefully use your blade to scrape off the top layer of paper where the ink was. If this isn't possible, and the ink has soaked completly through the paper, then you're going to have to copy the map onto a fresh sheet.
Well, you're done with your map. Proud? You should be, that was quite a bit of work. Show it to your friends, get a drink from the local tavern, have copies made, go celebrate; you suffered alot to make this map. Now its time for you to stop pretending your a cartographer, go out there and make a map yourself. Good luck!
c-k-i-d