Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Study of Master Roidelle: The Westlands 'big map' project




By Dominic


It has been a while since the maps of Andor and my next 'finished map' won't be ready
before some time next week, so I figured, why not show a sketch of an ongoing project?

This one is the sketch of a map of the Westlands I began in early 2008, based on the 'Big Map' combined with references from other maps published in 'The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time' to extend the covered area to the full Aiel Waste and the western limits of Shara. I digitized it as a rough reference, to compare the accuracy with digital versions etc. - shortly before I erased the work grid with which I made the enlarged reproduction by hand. The actual sketch is a bit over one meter large. It was done so large so I can also use it as the base to create fairly precise regional/national maps.



The original project for this map was to complete it as a full colour painting in the vein of the 'Big Map', though at the moment I'm also considering turning it into a china ink, pencil and charcoal project before bringing it into the computer for additional graphic treatment. A black and white rendition would be more versatile to achieve some of the 'ancient maps' looks I love.

And oh... of the many questions I'd really like to solve one day is the location of Rhuidean in the Waste.

4 comments:

Adam Whitehead said...

Interesting project, and it looks pretty good so far. Locating Rhuidean is problematic, but it should be possible to pin down a rough estimate. Thanks to the various timeline sites out there, we can work out how long it took Rand's army to get from Rhuidean to the Jangai Pass, and according to various maps Rhuidean is due east of the pass, so it should be possible to work out a rough area working on the basis that the Aiel covered 25-30 miles a day. I think there's references on how fast the Aiel can travel in books and something could be worked out from them.

Dominic said...

I will be looking for this during the read-through.

IIRC, Rhuidean needs to be positionned between two mountain chains in a valley and the closest mountain is Chaendaer. I vaguely remember a description of the panorama (and my memory might be faulty, the attempt I made to position Rhuidean dates back to Jan 2008 or so), which maybe had the two chains joining in the distance beyond Rhuidean - so I ended up positionning it on the sketch pretty much east (not fully due east, but south-east - the doodling in the middle of the Waste isn't moutains, by the Way, it's a note of some kind that got erased at the same time as the grid) of the Jangai pass, though it's quite possible it's actually north of that mountain chain, not south as I placed it (the way I placed it, Rand would have gone east from Rhuidean for a while, then turn almost straight west to the Jangai Pass - I'm not sure this fits the book's description. I guess in the V below the Jangai isn't really an option, as Rand would have gone almost straight north from there, and certainly not west.

If you do the approximation of the distance covered from Rhuidean to the Jangai Pass from the POVs and chronology let me know.

BobH said...

According to Tellings, it took Rand and co. 15 days to get from Rhuidean to the east side of the Jangai Pass. The book text says it was half a month, but it looks like S.Cooper was able to place the time as 15 days. There were no PoVs from any of the travelers during the interim.

FYI ... it took 4 days for the group to get through the pass to the west side, so you can use that as a guide to judge how far they could have traveled in 15 days.

BobH said...

Oops, it took 14 days, not 15 days. Tellings says they left on Aug.13 and arrived on Aug.27.