How much do you plan your locations?

[Amecha]

How much work and planning do you put into your locations, specifically if you aren't using a real world location? If your story takes place in a fictional city that could possibly be real how much planning do you put into that city, or town, or whatever. Do you think of the actual backstory of your towns or cities and how they came to be? And for fantasy writers how much work do you personally put into the land and cities or towns that populate it? Do you plan up the entire planet or just focus on the small area where the plot takes place? What are your methods and do you do concept art, or do you wing it and just keep track of what things you've added for the sake of continuity?

I'm super curious, I'd love to see/hear about your methods and just how much detail you go into. I love all forms of world building and I'm working on the actual physical world building right now so I've got it on my mind.

[dawgofdawgness]

I usually just drag a photo of an existing place onto Paint Tool Sai and edit it, so I don't spend too much time on planning it

[XzynderVexymous]

I made a universe. That's how I planned my story. Now basically, even though it's a manga, my story takes place in America (Becuase I know America the best cx) but I don't use real city names. I make up city names.

For example, there is no real known location in DBZ but most of us still love the franchise.

It's ultimately about you. Do you want a real location, made up, or both?

Hoped this helpful fellow creator.

[Amecha]

Yeah it depends on the story and what the writer/artist wants to do. Since I just love making locations I put a lot of work into it but it also depends. In the same story I have a completely fictional city and a chunk of the story takes place in a real city. In one of my fantasy stories the whole thing takes place on a completely different fantasy planet, like Nirn in Elder Scrolls.

[keii4ii]

I'm not one of those creators who plan out every nook and cranny of every city visited by the characters. It's not that I don't enjoy worldbuilding, but I can't use that approach if my focus for the project is the characters. When I do super extensive worldbuilding, that's the focus of the project -- e.g. designing an RP world.

That said, I usually end up drawing a very basic map of each area to keep things consistent. I also know more about the history of the world than will ever be fully explored in the comic, but that's more of the result of me fleshing out some details that have at least some relevance to the plot, rather than worldbuilding for the sake of worldbuilding.

[Jonnydark]

Gosh, I've had the locations for my comic in my head for years. It's hard to believe I had to dream it all up once. I usually think efficiently. Like, if I know an island is only going to be viewed from one side I don't map out the whole other side. But the side I DO use is very much detailed. Somehow I like keeping the mystery open on my worlds even to myself. I don't want to define them too much. I'm okay with them being sets.

[IdiotWithPencil]

usually I just imagin a rought sketch of the place in mi mind and draw a map of the place, then when I need a specific location, person or object I try to creat and fit it into the story of the map and world, also trying to make it consistent and interestin, and I just focus on small areas where the interesting things happen, if it ain't interesting or pushing the plot why put it in there?

[scarlet_wings_kaili]

It depends on how important the location is to the story, so it's different case to case.
The deepest I'll go is I create the entire culture of the place, which includes natural environment (and how that affects people's lifestyles), weather (how that will change buildings) as well as designing the human made structures based on the belief's of that area. When I create the entire culture of the place, I tend to do a lot of concept art and go into mirco-detail.

But that takes a lot of time, so I usually don't do it very often.
The very minimum I'll do is natural environment and building styles (without really creating a backstory of why).
Here are some of the concept art for locations in Halfsoul

[spadesart]

[davidlhickmon]

My fictional city, Autumn Bay, NY, has been built up over the last twenty years. I know the neighborhoods, the suburbs, the establishments, locally-based corporations, local bands, local street gangs, the politics, the secret places...

Sometimes, I feel like I have lived there. It really helps when plotting. The rough maps I have drawn up also help.

When it comes to actually drawing the places, I look for references that evoke the proper feel of the location and scene.

[joannekwan]

For my contemporary speculative fictions, I just base locales off real cities and towns in real life. They're usually an amalgam of multiple locations. Like most of my cities are based off San Francisco since it's the closest big city I have easy access to.

For fantasy and sci-fi settings, I'll do more planning. I'll think of the culture and if it has any influence from real life cultures and usually those will inform the people and architecture of the city. But I'll only plan as much as needed for the story. Like if it only takes place in one locale in one span of time, I'm not going to plan its neighboring countries and history unless it was relevant to the story.

The largest world I ever created was a fantasy set around the 1800's (our time), that spanned the entire globe because I had planned it as a series that would focus on one continent and the next. That one was really fun to plan. It's still in development but I enjoy going back and reading what I had come up with.

[punkarsenic]

my comics based in ancient ireland, so while i cant really make up a bunch of geographical notes, theres still a lot of planning to go into accuracy and i plan my settings quite a bit. i find that if i dont focus on the setting without the people first, my backgrounds end up pretty bland.

[emkay]

I'm the type of writer/artist who needs to know every detail about his locations. My comic will be a mix of ancient Earth and my own fantasy realm, so a lot of Earth places are real locations (i.e. Africa) and the fantasy realm is based on real locations.

I like to do as much visual and written planning as possible. I'll find blank worldbuilding templates to fill out just to get an idea of what my setting is like -- what are its origins, what's the geography/climate like, where is it positioned near other settings, what kind of creatures and plants live there, are there any civilizations, etc. It gets the most complicated when you factor in civilizations, because then I need to write down how the civilization was created, what's the major form of government, are there any official religions, what's daily life like, etc.

And as I'm writing things out and brainstorming new ideas, I like to doodle some visual ideas too. Here's some concept art I've done so far for the fantasy realm:

I wish I had a neat process for worldbuilding, but honestly I just research, write, and draw until I feel like I know enough about my setting. I highly recommend worldbuilding templates because they're a great place to start brainstorming and work your way up from there. I'd also recommend getting a Pinterest or something similar where you can collect pictures of different locations that will help you create your own.

And I also love to write snippets where my characters explain the settings to other characters -- dunno why, but I find that really helpful and fun.

[Jophiel]

I guess it depends on the work/s? :""D My main story is set on a fictional universe with different sets of laws and such. Since the morals and beliefs of my characters are opposed to what one may consider "right", world-building may become essential to understanding how their world works.

For the places, I usually write little descriptions in notes and scribble a draft but most of the time, i just wing it tbh ;; Sure some has it's history and some not, though in the end, I try to make it significant for at-least a character or two.

[theladiesi]

Our story is a sci-fi story so locations are pretty important. There is a lot of traveling so each place that is visited has it's own history and planning goes into each location. That's a big part of why we chose to do a prologue even though we know prologues are controversial. We just felt like there are a lot of places in this story and we wanted readers to have some knowledge of the world before going into the story so it isn't like throwing them into the deep end of the pool. XP

[Rhombik]

I love world building. I think it can tell you quite a lot about your characters. But I try to do it gradually... As my series goes on, more and more places get added on. I don't want to swamp the reader with information.

For example, I just created Ned's bedroom - and actually you can only see a portion of it but I think it tells you a bit about him.

Also, I like hiding Easter eggs in the surroundings... like a certain football team's logo is on the wall behind him.