Camping Design/ Dune/ Ankh-Morpork

Camping Design

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Having read The Lord of the Rings as a child, I always wanted to copy Sam and Frodo and travel on foot in wild lands. The furthest I have got is Wales, but still worth it, mostly the Brecon Beacons in South Wales from which the photographs on this site come. There are some places there where you cannot see a house, a road or even a fence, which is unusual in Britain. Though at night, the single light of a distant cottage miles away across the hills can be a friendly sight to a solo camper.

At the start of “The Two Towers” movie, Sam and Frodo are seen sleeping among the rocks of the Emyn Muil, wrapped in their cloaks with the rain falling on their faces. When I saw this, I went out and bought a Vietnam-era, army-surplus poncho, thinking that one could design a better shelter even using something as simple as the Elven cloaks the Fellowship were given by Galadriel.
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Fog on the Barrow Downs, Tolkien
Lord of the Rings map, Rivendell, Legolas
Moria, Tolkien, Gollum, One Ring
In camping, a shelter improvised from a plain rectangle of waterproof material is called a 'tarp'. My first solution was a structure like a piece of A4 paper folded diagonally and held up at one corner by a tree, fencepost or trekking pole like the drawing below. This is open to the weather on two sides but before you object, it’s surprising how rarely the wind swings round by 180 degrees during the night. A tarp like this has the advantage that one is continuously aware of the world outside, and can check the sky without getting out of your sleeping bag, in a way that zipping yourself up in a "International Signal-Orange" nylon tent does not permit.
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My first poncho was the same sort that Charlie Sheen uses in the film 'Platoon',  just a thin rectangular sheet of silicon rubber without any "base" fabric. Given that the diagonal centreline was supported by a string, when the wind was blowing the poncho would billow and stretch like a huge pair of bloomers when seen from underneath.
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Tolkien, Legolas, Camping
Tolkien, Middle-earth, camping, tarp, planning, Frodo
Lord of the Rings map, Ents, Rivendell, Legolas
Ponchos tend to be about 1.5 x 2.1m in size, I later bought an larger, 2.4 x 2.8m, Alpkit 'Rig 7'  tarp that enabled me to enclose 3 sides of the shelter while still allowing my cigarette smoke to escape easily.
LOTR map, Treebeard, Celeborn
tarp camping, Brecons, Journeyman Draughting, Tolkien landscape
LOTR map, Aragorn, Rohan, Tolkien map, Journeyman


For more info and other possible tarp configurations go to

https://plans-design-draughting.co.uk/camping-design/

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For my ideas on flexible, plug-together camping components, contact me

Rucksack combo, Bumbag, Tolkien, camping design, Journeyman draughting
Bumbag, camping design, Tolkien, Journeyman draughting
Rucksack, Bumbag, camping design, Tolkien, Journeyman draughting, 3

Downloadable Terrain Models

Ordnance Survey Opendata

Various types of 3D data e.g. contours, can be downloaded for free from the Ordnance Survey Opendata site. These are available in .dwg, .dxf and other formats. When I downloaded the contour data for the Brecon beacons, I had to join up the contour lines where they were broken by height notation text but this is still a huge resource.

www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html

The Brecon Beacons

The images below are of 3D models I made showing the contours at 10 metre intervals for 192 square kilometres centred around Pen-y-Fan in the Brecon Beacons. These models are available to download in Sketchup8 format from 3D Warehouse, just search under “Brecon Beacons.” (Also available is my cool new model of the Cold-War Alvis 'Stalwart' High Mobility Load Carrier.)

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search/models?q=Brecon+beacons

Journeyman, Terrain Model, Brecons
Brecons Terrain Model, Tolkien, Journeyman Draughting
Brecons Terrain Model, Tolkien, Journeyman Draughting, Sandbox 2 Gridded

Dune – Arrakis

By

'Frank' (Franklin Patrick) Herbert Jr. 

October 8th, 1920 – February 11th, 1986

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If The Lord of the Rings is my favourite “High Fantasy” novel, then Dune is my favourite science-fiction story. So, of course, I made a 3D model of the northern hemisphere of Planet Arrakis, “Dune”. This was copied from the map by Dorothy De Fontaine that is included in the paperback edition of the book. The model is pretty simple but those who know Sketchup will appreciate that extruding from flat surfaces on a spherical model opens up a multitude of “cracks” which have to be repaired.

Download at

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/a1c0889b316f638593b1a305f92dfbf/Dune-Arrakis-Topographic-model-contours-httpplans-design-draughtingcouk

Dune Map, Arrakis, Frank Herbert book “Dune”, from the map by Dorothy De Fontaine
Dune map by Dorothy De Fontaine
3D model of Arrakis, “Dune”, from the map by Dorothy De Fontaine, Frank Herbert

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Ankh-Morpork, Discworld

And finally, if anyone cares to see my drawings and analysis of the city of Ankh-Morpork, from Sir Terry Pratchett’s 'Discworld' books, these are available on my work website.

Discworld, Unseen University, Pratchett, Ankh-Morpork, Journeyman Draughting
Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork, Diskworld.
Sir Terry Pratchett
Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork, Diskworld.
Sir Terry Pratchett
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Link to Ankh-Morpork pages

https://plans-design-draughting.co.uk/ankh-morpork/

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In putting this map on the internet I am trying to persuade HarperCollins Publishers (who vet copyright and trademark applications on behalf of the Tolkien Estate) to allow me to publish and sell my map in paper form. They are worried about John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's legacy being commercialised. If you think that my version of Middle-earth is worthy as a respectful 'homage', please drop them a message at enquiries@harpercollins.co.uk

Charles D. F. Board
October 2025


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