Things to consider when portraying a setting landscape

1. Things to consider when portraying a setting landscape

   #1

   The landscape is a product of nature's own processes and humanoid activities troughout centuries or millenia. Traces of human activity may dominate the landscape, as in a farming district with fields and meadows, or they may be quite difficult for most people to perceive, for example in a remote forest which has long been spared from the woodsman's axe. Howerver, traces can be found almost all over a world.
   The landscape is subject to constant change. New activities and new techiques are continually transforming it. You as a world creator have to put your finger down somewhere and say; This is the part i want to capture.
   To do this you should make a sketch of what has happened before and how did it become this way.
   This is also the case where human beings(The creatures in your world) cease to utilize it.
   When farms become desolate the face of the countryside is changed.
   
   Traditional exploitation of natural resources creates a rich and varied landscape, thus encreasing the number and variety of plant and animal species. However, new technology in your world, efficient forms of utilization
   and increasing urbanization gives rise to uniform landscapes, thus reducing not only the number of species in your flora/fauna but also the characteristic multiplicity of experiences and impressions afforded by the living landscape.
   
   This thread is first and foremost a ramble trough different landscapes.
   It's aim is to show landscapes from a possible time of rock carvings and burial cairns up to the present day in a setting.
   
   Far removed from contemporary customs and practices and far from the beaten track a grey cottage looms out of the forest, shaded by an aging Aspen inhabited by woodpeckers. But no one livesin the grey cottage any more. Its windows are black and empty, no paths runs from barn to stable, willow herbs blushing in the summer sunlight encircle the mounds of stone, and stinging nettles draw a veil of oblivion over the farmtools which is fighting its final battle - against the ravages of rust.
   
   You are aware that you have a minute piece of history before you. You see buildings and structures that show every sign of having been conceived with this place in mind, and which have lived a long life just here. But now they are no longer alive. What you can see is a home which has exhausted its usefulness. However, if you look around you, you will realize that whoever they were who eked out a meagre existence farming here nevertheless left something behind.
   
   More to come...

2. Re: Things to consider when portraying a setting landscape

   #2

   Good thread here, MJS. Landscape imagery with a painter's eye. Come back and continue it one day.

3. Re: Things to consider when portraying a setting landscape

   #3

   I thought MJS went ahead and posted a scroll called Landscape Descriptions on the main site, I tagged in my Fav under Scroll Additions I believe though landscape descriptions alongside with characterisation are my two weak points so I haven't made any personal contribution towards expanding the scroll but it's a solid 20 at the moment.

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