Creating a Vintage Silk Road Map

This video walks you through the creation of a vintage-style map of the Silk Road. This is a useful technique to give historical maps a unique look. The video uses QGIS, Illustrator, and Photoshop.

[@malmasabih]

Jess you are doing a great work, keep it up.

[@bmatt2626]

Is there historical road data somewhere? I've found aerial photos here and there, but wondering if anyone has stitched together pre-WWII, pre-highway road layers for US and Europe.

[@jesszimmerman684]

I honestly don't know. You can probably find old maps, with those roads, but you'd have to trace the roads in QGIS -- not fun. Or maybe georeference the old map.

[@majesticfishop8344]

Hi my ocean layer does not seem to export properly no matter what I do, large portions of the ocean look like they've been sliced away

[@jesszimmerman684]

Can you send me your SVG file? Send it to [e-mail].

[@brambora]

This is very nice!

[@coachsalling]

Followed your steps, only part of water in water layer is the Caspian Sea and when I hide the terrain to look at land the only land are the random islands. Common issue?

[@jesszimmerman684]

You're right, my apologies. The Caspian Sea is often problematic for me. When I created the original map, I used a land layer as a mask in Photoshop to remove all of the ocean area, and also the lakes, leaving just transparency. I then added a separate layer for the water. When I applied the Inner Glow effect, it worked correctly for the lakes. The video is a simplified version of this. I'll be redoing it showing the more complex (but better) method.

[@coachsalling]

@@jesszimmerman684 Thank you a lot for replying. I'm learning (History teacher seeking to make amazing maps) and thought I was doing something wrong in the process I watched. Finding this vidoe on how you made the Silk Road Map is what I'm looking for! I have Illustrator and After Effects. I'll make sure I get Photoshop as well.