Elloss' Maps

This article is supposed to serve as an exhibit of Elloss' maps that he has designed over the years. It is organized from oldest to newest which shows how his styles and interests changed over the years.

Hijabui City - September 2017
The first time Elloss ever drew a map as far as he can remember was back in September of 2017 when he first started getting into transit. This is most likely because he got the game Mini Metro back then and fell in love with transit systems ever since then. Being the first subway map Elloss ever drew, it is very primitive in how its drawn and the subway system itself would be seen by him as incredibly inefficient in his standard's today.

This map is of a subway system of a fictional city named Hijabui City. Something that Elloss rarely shows in his maps is a street map alongside the subway lines. You can see three general dense urban areas where most of the subway lines passed through. Many of the lines are far too short and very strange routes such as the purple lines in the north east. There is barely any subway connectivity between the three regions of the map as well.

Overall, the map is very subpar and Elloss rates it a 4/10.

Unnamed World Maps - December 2017
After the subway map he made, he wanted to try something different. He was watching Avatar: The Last Airbender at that time and was inspired by the large, natural looking world and wanted to try to draw it himself.

The map looks very nice with the oval shape to display the full world. The political map has unique names for the countries and oceans while the geographical map has a realistic use of geographical areas. However, the maps look very basic and don't have much appeal to them besides looking at them for the first minute.

Overall, the map is ok and gets a 6/10 by Elloss.

World of Crystal - December 2017
This is another map I made inspired by Avatar. It even tries to have the same art style.

The map looks even better than the last one and the Avatar style makes it look very faithful. However, the it copies Avatar too much with how all the nations use the same colors as Avatar, and how the Emerald Kingdom has two large cities similar to how the Earth Kingdom in Avatar does, too.

Overall, the map is decent and is a 7/10 by Elloss.

Unnamed Naruto Map - November 2018
Nearly a year later, I tried again at making maps. This time, he was watching Naruto at around the time this was made so you can see the inspiration from that show's world map.

The map is pretty bland and doesn't have much going on. It's a 5/10 by Elloss.

Unnamed Naruto Map 2 - November 2018
This map was probably made on the same day as the previous one and has the same inspiration.

It is slightly better though since it has more interesting geography, more nations, and an element inspired naming scheme.

Overall, its decent and scores a 6/10 by Elloss.

Primitive Subway Map 1 - December 2018


This map has me going back to subways as he try to make a new one after nearly a year later. This is the first of three subway maps that he made close together that he consider to be prototype versions of my more modern looking subway maps and should be considered as such.

The map itself is ok. It lacks any station names which he didn't bother to add since this was a simple experiment. It does however show the both local and express stations and trunk lines which is what he used in all the following maps.

Overall, the map is a 6/10 by Elloss for doing what it was created for decently enough.

Primitive Subway Map 2 - December 2018
This is the second of three prototype subway maps he made when trying my hand at drawing them. In this one, he did a very strange thing at the time; using a 45-degree style, which he only recently started using.

The map is already better than the first one because it's no longer as random looking. There seems to be more thought into where all the lines go. What this map suffers from just like the previous one is that it is too squarish and unrealistic looking. No map is drawn to fit in a square but rather based on the city limits.

Overall, the map is a 7/10 by Elloss.

Primitive Subway Map 3 - March 2019
This is the third and final map of the prototype maps that he made but a couple months later. It has many new additions such as station names, ferry routes, and names for boroughs and water bodies. He also made the map in a higher resolution than the other two, trying to copycat off the MTA NYC map style.

The map looks very nice and the addition of the ferry routes makes it look even more realistic. Overall, this map deserves an 8/10 in Elloss' opinion.

Fantasy NYC Subway Map - June 2019
Now he come to the part of this article where he mostly start working on NYC maps from now on. He actually made this using the Brand New Subway website, but he still count it as a map he made, especially since he had to stitch multiple screenshots together.

The map is actually a reimagining of the NYC subway and tries to create a new subway from scratch without directly replicating any of the existing routes. This was Elloss' first attempt at a NYC subway map and he was still learning on how to perfect his subway design skills. It does look good at least visually, but some lines such as the brown, black, and purple lines look very inefficient.

Overall, the map is decent and gets a 7/10 from Elloss.

Fantasy London Subway Map - June 2019
After the NYC map, Elloss tried to go in a new direction and create an imaginary subway for another city. This time he chose London, which has a very different subway system to NYC in how it runs through the city. Instead of trunk lines, you have all of the lines trying to cover as much space as possible while meeting in the center at some hub station.

The map looks alright, but definitely does not look like the existing London Underground. It's like a sort of hybrid between the NYC and London maps which makes it worse off.

Overall, Elloss gives it a 6/10.

Fantasy NYC Subway Map 2 - September 2019


This time, Elloss returns to NYC to try to make another fantasy subway map, but making it much simpler for some reason. What's nice about this map compared to the previous one is that this one actually has station names.

The map is pretty simple and lacking in stations in many areas. It was done this way for better legibility, but makes the whole system worse off because of this. Also, there are some strange and inefficient lines like the Bronx-Queens blue lines and the Rockaways to Brooklyn line. Also the fact that it's missing Staten Island makes it worse off.

Overall, the map is a 6/10 by Elloss.

Staten Island Light Rail Map - September 2019
This map was a small side-project, mostly to serve as a proof-of-concept. It shows the existing Staten Island Railway plus the two new lines I added into this map.

It's pretty basic but for what it does, it serves its purpose well.

Overall, a 7/10 by Elloss.

Los Angeles Subway Map - October 2019
Now, Elloss tries another city and he stays on the American coast and goes with Los Angeles. This was when he first learned about the LA Metro and he wanted to see if he can build a better one.

The map is pretty good; it attempts to cover the densely populated areas of LA while also bringing people towards the city core where they want to go. Also, he included a Legend Box on a Brand New Subway map for the first time.

Overall, its pretty good and deserves an 8/10 by Elloss.

Kiygyo Subway Map - October 2019
This is one of the two maps where Elloss took a break from using BNS and decided to build a map using a new website. This one isn't the most clean looking, but it does use the 45-degree style which is what Elloss ended up liking the most later on.

The map is of a fictional city called Kiygyo. The choice of some of the lines are questionable, but it seems to be fine in the end.

Elloss rates this a 6/10 overall.

Dornost Subway Map - October 2019
This is another map he made using the new website he found. This is another fantasy city which he made a subway for.

What's nice is that he added universities and an airport on the map. This map does have a lot of sense to it, and his modern process of designing maps is showing itself here. It also has local and express stations which he hasn't used in a while.

Overall, the map is an 8/10 by Elloss.

Auckland Subway Map - November 2019
This is another fantasy subway experiment he made in another city. This time he went back to BNS and tried to see if he can do it better than London.

The Map is good, but still has some questionable lines. Also, the image is way too large and the lines need to be more pronounced.

Overall, it's decent so a 6/10 by Elloss.

Staten Island Railway Map - November 2019
In this map, he returns to Staten Island again but has a much more grandiose vision. This was the first large map project that Elloss worked on and took probably more than a week to finish. He worked on this in parts where are he completes a part, he uploads it on Reddit and seeks criticisms so he can make changes and improvements. The focus of this map was to expand the Staten Island Railway to make it provide as much service to Staten Island as possible while also giving people connections to other transit systems.

In this map, Elloss used and expanded upon the existing SIR line and created several new lines and branches. Many of which go to Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. While aesthetically good looking, the subway system itself has one big problem: St George is a major choke point in the system because it usually requires a transfer to another line and it's the only place that actually goes to the rest of the city.

Overall, Elloss rates this well at an 9/10.

Verrilyn City Subway Map - February 2020


After Elloss' last big project, he went back to designing another fantasy subway map. This time however, he didn't use any website to make it, he just drew it all from scratch on a Paint app. What's cool about this map is that he also made a history of the map, showing the state of the subway at each major state and change in its life.

You can tell that Elloss' subway design skills are improving as you have subway lines that go through the important areas of the city while also going through the downtown areas. The use of three different systems to reflect how the NYC subway was made is also a nice and creative touch.

Overall, Elloss rates this map a 9/10 because it's pretty good.

Hudson County Subway - April 2020


This next map would be considered the last of Elloss' conventional maps. Before, he would always use a basic Paint app like MS Paint on Windows or PaintBrush on Mac to draw his maps. For this map, he went with something a little more Professional and used Paint.net-like application to build it. He used Paint.net for previous maps, but he really took advantage of the extra features in this one. This map also has one of the highest resolutions out of all the ones that came before it.

The map is a fantasy Hudson county subway and while not as complex as the previous two maps, this was the time when Elloss was beginning his transition period into greater software for map design. The map itself is fine, but Elloss did end up improving on the ideas in this map in future designs.

Overall, the map is an 8/10 for Elloss.

New Jersey City Subway Map - June 2020
This is the second big project Elloss undertook. In this one, he made a NYC subway map if the subway expanded west of the Hudson river instead of east of the East River. This was a big project as he made station a 20+ full size subway comparable with the actual subway. Thinking of the most optimal routes was the most challenging part. He also made a strip map to show each individual route as a straight line with icons for transfer points. Elloss used a staged approach where he posted each stage of a map to reddit for comments, then adds further improvements and additions to the map after until it is complete.

This project was also a big deal because Elloss is now making his transition from traditional paint apps and into vector-based software. This map was created using an already made subway template with most of the objects already provided to use. However, after he made the map, he had to use standard Paint apps for corrections which wasn't very convenient. Still, this was a big step in a new and ambitious direction for Elloss. The whole thing probably took like two weeks to make.

The map itself is very nice. All the lines make sense and cover as much area in Manhattan and New Jersey as possible. The only thing holding this map back is that the land shape is too curvy and doesn't fit the 45-degree style used.

Overall, Elloss rates it a 9/10.

Nameria Subway CS Map - June 2020
This is the first map that Elloss made when he started playing Cities: Skylines and wanted to make a map of his city. This is also the first map that he made entirely with the vector-based software Inkscape. It's pretty rough and during this time Elloss still only used the standard game map size, but it has a decent enough presentation. This is the first of three prototype Cities: Skylines maps that Elloss creates to test out Inkscape features.

The map itself is alright. It looks nice thanks to Inkscape, but the system relies too greatly on interlining and would definitely reduce service because of this.

Overall, the map is an 7/10.

Staten Island CS Map - July 2020
This is the second of the three Cities: Skylines prototype maps that Elloss made while testing out Inkscape features. This one has a really nice presentation and has many new and rarely used features like a street grid, neighborhood names, water body names, and a new type of mode of transit besides heavy rail which in this map is monorail.

While making this subway in the game, Elloss found a way to increase the game's normal city limits for a much large possible subway compared to before. This time, he focused on coverage and efficiency instead of one-way trips, so there are almost no interlining. He also tried to replicate the official NYC subway map which has a lot of similarities. The monorail is also nice which runs efficiently within the dense urban areas of the city.

Overall, the map is an 8/10 for Elloss.

Brooklyn CS Map - July 2020
This is the third and last of the Cities: Skylines prototype maps and it really shows with all the new additions. First of all, the style used in this map is very close to Elloss' official current style. Second, he experimented with the 45-degree style for the first time in Inkscape and it works very well on it. He introduced new features like Station Transfers, colored station icons, and other aesthetics for the the legend and the top. This was actually made in a similar style to the official LA Metro map similar to how the previous map was made to copy the NYC subway map style.

This map yet again uses another type of public transit besides heavy rail, this time being light rail. He also used a balanced amount of interlining and subway spread to achieve a golden center of both.

Overall, the map is very nice and deserves a 9/10 by Elloss.

New York City Subway Future - September 2020
This is the third big project that Elloss undertook that took nearly a month and a half to complete. It is a map of the New York City Subway that uses the actual subway but expands upon it in ways that Elloss thought would be best. This map was made after his experiments with the prototype maps while using Cities: Skylines and finally mastered using Inkscape for drawing subway maps and finalized his style for drawing future subway maps. Similar to the other big projects, he used the staged approach, but the scope of the project is much larger than a standard staged approach can handle. Because of this, he built a subway for each borough of the city one at a time and then posted them on reddit for criticisms to further improve them. At the time this project was being made, Elloss couldn't build a subway map at the scale of the actual NYC subway, so he had to split the whole project into one borough at a time and used the stage approach for each borough individually. By the time the first four boroughs was done, he stitched them all together and designed the Manhattan and New Jersey portion of the subway. Finally, he used the staged approach on the final product to perfect the project as a whole to complete it. Elloss considers this his ultimate project and is extra special to him not just for the amount of time and effort put into it but also for creating a better subway for his home town which he loves dearly.

The map itself is very well thought out and extremely pleasing to look at. It is the most complex map Elloss ever made and it can be seen from the scale of the map. He designed this map using the most sophisticated methods as well. With his extensive knowledge of the boroughs accumulated over years of designing maps, the NYC track map at his aid, and the Brand New Subway site to build the initial skeleton of the subway, he managed to make the most skillfully conceived map he ever map. Some things Elloss accounted for while building this was existing track provisions, abandoned or underused sections of railroads or railroad right-of-ways, finding places that have high population density and need rail transit most, and managing existing subway to work most efficiently with the introduction of new lines. As Elloss made this map, he also added several new things like parks, transfers with gradients, double and triple line stations, and fully rounded subway lines for a much more pleasant look. He also added another new type of public transit to keep the trend going with new light rail lines this time.

Overall, the map is a glorious masterpiece in Elloss' opinion and deserves a perfect 10/10. Elloss hopes that all his following maps will at least attempt to be as good as this perfect map he made.

Historical NYC Subway Maps - September 2020
This was a project that Elloss started immediately after his last glorious map. This project involved showing how all three original subway systems in NYC looked in 1939. This year was chosen because it was when the World's Fair was in NYC and there are many lines that no longer exist now but did back then. All three maps were made in the same style and don't trunk together like in the previous maps. Elloss really tried going for a new style this time around.

Because these are historical maps, Elloss technically didn't include any fictional lines. He tried to make them as historically accurate as possible and followed the original service guides from that period. Not all information was immediately available for some of the maps, so he had to make educated guesses sometimes.

Overall, the maps are very nice looking. Elloss gives these maps 10/10's because they are flawless.

Staten Island Future Rapid Transit - October 2020
Elloss returns to not only Staten Island but also in using the regular, not 45 degree style he used to use when making maps. At the same time, it resembles the previous three maps in the coloring and style. He also experiments more with gradients and curved text which is he getting accustomed with now.

The map is pretty simple and has only three different lines. This is technically the first time Elloss ever made a map featuring a BRT line, and he used square stations to distinguish them from regular rail stations which are circles as usual. He also experimented again with making a custom logo which he hasn't since the Nameria map and it looks pretty good.

Overall, the map is simple but very nice looking and deserves the 10/10 from Elloss.

New York City Subway Map 2020 - October 2020
Elloss returns to New York for another map for hopefully the last time for a while. This is a map of the current NYC subway map in 2020. It uses the same style as the 1939 maps, except the same colored lines are truncated again to save room. He used a special labeling system that involves using different station icons and service label colors to let the reader know which lines are local or express on any part of the map. He also focused on aesthetic over geographical accuracy, but still tried to roughly follow the lines routes.

The map is very clear and everything is shown with little clutter. The unique labeling system is easy to understand and follow and removes the need to show the services under each station name to make it look nicer.

Overall, Elloss rates the map a 10/10. He considers it his new favorite project as of October 2020.

Poletteron - October 2020
Elloss was really busy in October of that year with making new maps. This one is his third attempt at making another timelapse map except this time it's being made in Inkscape. Poletteron is a fictional city located at a bay. Elloss created 10 frames of the city subway and then combined them all with a GIF. This map uses the same style as the previous map since he really enjoyed using it up to that point.

The map looks good, but it's not very exciting when not much is known about this city besides its subway system. The network can also get a bit weird at times, especially on the west side.

Overall, Elloss enjoys this map but he considers this more of a prototype timelapse map in Inkscape and he would go on to make better versions in the future. He rates this an 8/10.

Los Angeles Metro by 2029 - December 2020
After making several maps in the same style, Elloss decides to use another style he previously used in the NYC Subway Future map. He also decided to try showing the future network of a city he worked with in the past: Los Angeles. LA has a large range of different transit services from busways, to light rail, to subways. Drawing all this on the map and trying to differentiate them all meant that he had to introduce unique symbols to each type of transit. Elloss used circles for light rail, squares for busways, and pentagons for subways.

The map itself looks great and is very clean. It is also a nice change of appearance from the previous style of maps Elloss was making. Elloss isn't a fan of how disjointed all the lines are and how it isn't hub and spoke like New York or Chicago, but he still likes how it looks.

Overall, Elloss really likes how it turned out and rates it a 9/10.

Emnesse Subway Maps - January 2021
This is Elloss' fourth attempt at a timelapse map. After Poletteron, Elloss wanted to make a more fleshed out fictional city subway system that takes inspiration from New York and Chicago. With 43 different frames and a long text file explaining the events that went on in each frame, this project was much bigger than the one I did with Poletteron. The city also had a much more natural transit evolution since it first started with elevated lines, then it replaced the elevated lines with subways, then it began building new lines with the construction of highways, and finally they modernized their infrastructure with more subways replacing Els and a new suburban subway line.

Elloss made two maps with this project. One is a geographically accurate map which uses a new style where trunk lines combine into one and rush hour services have a lighter color. The second is a diagrammatic map which uses a new style for Elloss, the Harry Beck style used in the London Subway map, which he ended up liking a lot. Both maps turned out pretty great. Elloss also greatly improved his logo design skills when he created the Emnesse Transit Authority logo in the bottom right corner. He also used fair zones for the first time in his maps.

Overall, Elloss rates both maps a 10/10 not only for turning out great, but because the network itself looks great because it evolved naturally and the amount of effort that Elloss sunk into this project.

Staten Island Future Rapid Transit 2 - February 2021
While messing around in Google My Maps and coming up with ideas for an expanded transit network for Staten Island for probably the tenth time, Elloss came up with a great idea. He realized that Staten Island's transit network can be expanded greatly and much cheaper than anywhere else in the city by using unused highway medians and abandoned ROWs. So he built a rough network in Google My Maps that covers almost all of Staten Island that also brings passengers to places like Elizabeth, Bayonne, and Brooklyn. It also includes connections to the Staten Island Ferry, New York City subway, Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, and the Newark Airtrain. Elloss was originally going to make a new diagrammatic map, but he realized that he already had an existing similar map that he can reuse to create a much larger and fleshed out network. The old map from October 2020 was a map of the network the MTA plans to make using some new BRT routes. Unsatisfied with the extent of the official planned network, Elloss reused that same map to build a system that Elloss considers to be much better.

With six new LRT lines being added along with the original SIR being integrated into the network, this new map shows how the system would cover most of the island and bring passengers to new areas outside the island as well. Elloss also used gradients in this map again since they were originally used in the first version of this map. The antiqued looking style of this map gives it a certain charm, as if this network was being designed by planners in the 1920s.

Overall, Elloss really likes how this map turned out. It is much better than the first version from last year and makes much better use of its assets. Even at this state, the network could expand more; Line 2 can be rerouted to Perth Amboy via the new Outerbridge Crossing, the HBLR can be integrated with the SIRT and have lines 2 and 3 go to Jersey City and Hoboken, and lines 5 and 7 can be extended north to Newark Penn Station to connect with PATH, NJTransit, and the Newark Light Rail. So anyway, Elloss rates this map a 10/10.

London Underground - March 2021
The next map Elloss made has him finally crossing the Atlantic ocean to design one of Europe's most famous metros. This map shows the entire London Underground without including the other rail services like the Docklands Light Railway and the London Overground to make the map less cluttered. It also includes the Northern Line extension that will open later this year. He went back to the regular style he uses for his maps such as his NYC and Poletteron maps. Using this style allowed him to design the interlining services of the London Underground without using too much space on the map. He also added service labels to this map to make it easier to see where services start and end.

Similar to NYC, the London Underground operates many different services that often share track and some even run express. This means that using the station icons on the inside of the line allows him to show express services and interlining rather simply. He also started being more precise with the width of the water geography; making the river width being constant throughout the map by using a complex measure-and-draw technique.

The map came out very nicely and Elloss was able to use most of the space very efficiently; even the parts of the system that has little service like the southeast. Overall, Elloss is very happy with the result and rates it a 10/10.

Chicago 'El' - March 2021
Elloss came back to the United States and designed a map of a city he was always fascinated by: Chicago. The elevated subway system of Chicago reminds him of smaller version NYC subway; they both have a central section that is served by many lines and they both have those same lines extend out to the rest of the city in a radial fashion. The main difference is that the Chicago 'El' lines converge in the city center in the form of a loop while in NYC they run parallel to one another on the different avenues. The Chicago loop really intrigued Elloss and how it also has two subways underneath the city that also help bring in commuters to the central business district.

One thing Elloss is especially proud of is designing the loop without putting it in an inset like most Chicago 'El' cartographers do, including the official map. Having to put the downtown part of the system in an inset separate from the rest of the system forces the reader to keep switching their glances from the inset and the rest of the system when they try to plan their route. Casually looking at the lines and trying to follow each line and then switching to the inset and back just to see the whole line gets annoying. Because of this, Elloss widened the loop to fit it and all the stations and station names in there. Besides this, Elloss also brought back service labels in this style again and he created a new way to show in-system and outside system interchanges.

Overall, the map came out fantastic. The system isn't too complicated and was easy to draw, the challenge came in aligning the stations so that ones on the same streets are directly across from one another. Doing this had me create a geographically accurate map that also still distorts the geography enough to still look nice. Elloss really likes how it looks and gives it a perfect 10/10.

Moscow 2030 Map - March 2021
I went back to Europe again to create a metro map of the city Moscow. This city is rapidly expanding its metro and covers pretty much everything inside the city limits. It even has three circle lines that help people get around the city's suburbs. Moscow has a very radial looking system which is pretty unique and gave me the inspiration to design a map of it's metro.

This is the first time I ever created a map with a perfect circle as a line. I also reused the style I created the Emnesse with along with some things from the Fantasy NYC Subway map. I also made the map use quite a lot of the useable space so it was very efficient. I also used new train icons for rail transfers in this map.

The map turned out pretty great. I'm really happy with how it turned out and it probably is either my first or second favorite map that I ever made now. Overall, it's a perfect 10/10.

Fantasy Seattle Subway - May 2021
For this map, I decided to go back to the United States and do a map of a city I've been interested in for a while: Seattle. Seattle, like New York, is surrounded by water in the form of lakes. This is what inspired me to make a map of Seattle in the style of the NYC subway map. This map is of an alternate reality where Seattle had population growth of the same size as New York and started developing their subway system in the early 20th century like New York did. This is basically what this map is about. Not only does the map style resemble the NYC subway map, but the way the subway system is designed the same way too: with trunk lines that pass through the downtown core, branches that extend into the suburbs, and heavy interlining that makes for interesting service patterns.

This map is very faithful to the New York subway map in terms of the style. Everything in the map is accurate from the coloring of the geography, the roads and neighborhood names, and the exact fonts used in the official map. The style fits Seattle very well and the subway system itself has similar service labelling with the letters (A, B, C, etc.) and includes different services like express service, rush hour service extensions, and rush hour express service.

This map is very exceptional in both aesthetic and the system quality. The amount of research, planning, and hours of design put into making this map really shows the effort Elloss put into it. He thinks this is the best map he ever made and considers it his baby. He rates it the perfect 10/10.