A very dense city centered around the confluence of two rivers, inspired by London, England.

I finally made a city that doesn’t just look like an alternative universe Portland! This city was influenced by London, since I have been studying the maps in anticipation of my upcoming visit.

After drawing the river and busy highways in pen, I waited a week before adding all the other streets. I really did not want to do them in pencil, because I don’t like drawing with them. I was also afraid of the inevitable smudging. Thankfully, smudging was only a problem near the edges of the pages, and pencil came out very sharp.

I also focused on not making this a perfect grid. There are many places with a grid, of course. I imagine the city planners built gridded neighborhoods away from the city (or tore things down to build a gridded neighborhood) until the city grew to merge them all. I also added a few diagonally aligned plazas, similar to Ladd’s Addition in Portland.

Another feature of this map is growing block sizes farther from the city. This is only really visible in the North and East edges of the map. These bigger blocks could represent more suburban areas, as in the North West corner. I’m still not sure how the edges of cities blend into their surroundings, and I’m not satisfied with how this map handles it.

This is among my current favorite maps that I have made. I know the effort I put into all the miniscule lines is a part of my love for it. I’m also glad to be back into drawing, since I’ve had a fairly long hiatus.