City map
My classmates and I were working together to create a map of a city. We started a group discussion about places and things the city needs. We listed our ideas down:
A beach
City centre
Schools
Shopping centre
Poor area
Reach area
Parks
Forest
Abounded area
Concert stage
Roads
Bus station
Train station
Hospital
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First, we circled each area on the map to mark where it should go. We decided to make some connections like placing a rich area next to the music stage and town centre and a poor area next to an abandoned area.
Next, we divided the work between each other and started work on developing the areas. I was responsible for the rich area, parks, part of the city centre, schools, roads and poor area.
My part included most of the middle and left sides of the map. When planning the different areas I was thinking about what each of these areas needed.
Together with my group, we made railway and bus routes around the centre of the city so people would have access to different areas. We highlighted the main roads that run from outside the city to the centre. Besides communal areas, I added a school and university so the city could raise a future generation and grow in population. We also tried to include some entertainment in the city such as a theme park and music arena.
I think this map turned out well. I like the fact that it is easy to read because of the specific colours we used to highlight roads and separate areas. It also taught me that a city consists of many different buildings and areas, so when it comes to building our 3D city we should consider assigning specific builds for everyone to make, so the ideas won't repeat.
The final city
When it comes to city arrangements I feel left out. I thought we are going to sort of discussing the placement of the buildings as a class. However, before I had any say in this everything was done. I didn't mind others doing me a favour and placing my coffee shop anywhere in the city. They did my job for me, so I wasn't sad about it, but I found out that a few of my friends also felt the same way. Some of them did not like where their buildings were placed, so we decided to talk to the group that arranged the city. None of us wanted to move anything without the permission of the other group, so we decided to ask if we could move some of the buildings as they were in an inconvenient place. Some of them were completely covered by other buildings, which was a bit problematic for people who wanted to make a story about these builds.
In the end, some people changed the arrangement of the buildings. I was thankful that someone listened to me and placed my coffee shop next to the road as it was necessary for my story.
From there I thought everything has been settled and everyone is ready to do some photographs of the city. However, before and after the photography lesson the buildings were keep moving from one place to another. I think it defeated the whole point of arranging them in the first place. I thought the task is for the whole class to make up stories about the same city. However, in the end, everyone's city will vary as the buildings were moved without anyone's knowledge.
Drawings inspired by the city
The pictures I took helped me to get my perspective right. However, some of the houses were either measured or glued wrong. It made the walls not straight and in various sizes and shapes, which took some time to correct in the process of redrawing it in photoshop.
Another problem was that many houses were plain white. I didn't want to have a street full of the same boring white houses, so I subtracted the colours of other houses and coloured the drawing.
Originally I was planning to make 3-4 drawings of the city. Unfortunately when I finished the 3rd one with a coffee shop and saved it on my memory stick. Little did I know about Mac computers as my memory stick got corrupted and my work was lost. When I tried to recover it, it didn't work. I did not have enough time to redo some of my work, so I decided to use some of the pictures in my comic instead of drawing them again.
I talked about this accident to one of the teachers who recommended avoiding memory sticks and saving them to Cloud or Drive instead. It was a very valuable lesson for me and I am happy that it happened in my first year of this course other ways I don't know what would I do if all my work got lost in my second or third year.
In the end, all I could do was try to catch up with what I lost including a few first pages of my comic.
