World map coloured paper

This colourful world map is a paper cutting, made of layers of paper, carefully cut out and pasted on top of each other. Or, well, not really actually. The map was made entirely on the computer; not a single sheet of paper was involved. Not that it was any less work to make it, by the way.

The colours roughly represent the climate and landscape zones on our planet. We see, in green and dark green, the tropical jungles around the equator. In lighter green the savannahs, in yellow the steppes and in orange-brown the deserts. In the temperate latitudes, we see a relatively light green for deciduous forests and a slightly darker green for the boreal coniferous forests. Above that, another greenish grey for the tundra. Furthermore, the high mountains and ice caps also have their own papers.

The oceans make up 71 per cent of the earth's surface; I could have made them all the same colour but for variety I used three different colours of paper, corresponding to depth.

Some areas are so large that several (virtual) sheets were needed. Seams are then visible there, which I made coincide with the equator, and the prime meridian.

The danger with this kind of Photoshop work is that the final result becomes a bit sterile. Therefore, I have subtly added some irregularities and shadows that enhance the illusion of a handmade map.