Constructing the island for the first time

[Giddy]

Let me know if there's a better thread to ask this,
But when you first got the constructing app, how didyou all fare for actually designing your islands? Any tips or anything that could help? As I've fairly just started but haven't gotten many good ideas on what to do and worried on how much should change. Have you stuck with what you felt is perfect for your island, or do you continue to change it?
Does it also depend on your theme or what items you want outside?

Spoiler: My current small ideas

Ignore the old map, I haven't had time to take a new one.
But I do really want to have my musuem in that spot, with a little waterfall (hopefully bridge if I know how to do it properly. I had at first wanted to put all the villager houses there, but nah. And just above it will have a lil woodland area. The river is where I don't really know what to do, how it should be shaped. What bits should be brought up and all that.

 

[VanitasFan26]

One of the things you should first do is mark down where the buildings (Villager Homes, Museum, Your Home, and Shops) will go. I would suggest to make a layout for where the buildings go. Usually what I do is use the Custom Designer App and I use any random design so that way I can mark where the building will go. I have the moving kit to mark where I want it to go so that way I don't have to worry about it being in the wrong place or if its off centered. So yeah thats how I make sure where buildings go.

As for Rivers you would want to make sure that they are connected. If you see an area on your island that may look like a good place for a river then you can use the waterscapping tool to show where the river will go. What I do is find out where the river is coming from, then I make sure to mark where the river will go, so that way it flows out from the island to the ocean. You can make a waterfall when you put layers of cliffs, just make sure you build a cliff on the layer and use the waterscapping tool to make it drop water so it flows to the river.

For themes and items me personally I don't really mind, I just usually go with my favorite colors like blue and green of where I want my custom designs to be and I place items that have the color to it. Then I usually have my Island Flag and Tune based off of my favorite game which is Kingdom Hearts. Also just to give you advice if you want to go a 5 star rating, you must make sure that you have enough fencing around your island, you cannot have too many trees, there must be enough flowers planted, It does need to have more items placed around the island to improve the scenery (according to Isabelle), you must have 10 villagers living on your island, and lastly you need to have most bridges and inclines around your island built to improve the landscape.

If you're still confused I would suggest looking up tutorials on YouTube that shows you how to design and terraform because it does sound complicated at first but once you get a great idea of what to do then you'll do it. Just make what you feel stands out to you.

 

[Moritz]

Its not a tip as such but just do what feels right right you and don't try to race to a perfect island.
There are some areas I never changed once since the start, some I've made minor changes to over the last year, some I've made massive changes to over the year, and some I've changed countless times.

I'm very happy with my island now, but there is one area I'm considering playing with even now. Just waiting to hear if e3 brings anything to the game that might change plans.

So just do what feels right and natural to you.
Trust your instincts. Even if you don't like it, you're not stuck with whatever you design.

I find there are very few people out there who feel they got their island perfect on their first attempt at designing it.

I say get the shovel out and go nuts!

 

[Venn]

I would definitely recommend getting all the buildings and villagers first (if you have to, set them on the beach first if you are planning on moving them, you'll save lots of bells).

After I got all the buildings and 10 villagers, I took a picture of my map and lined out my where buildings/houses went, layers, waterfalls and rivers (like what you did but everywhere). After that, I kept referring back to the edits I did and made it off of that. I didn't do a complete overhaul but used what my island already had as inspiration. I don't have the need to redo my island, but I did do some tweaks afterwards only on the river to fix some areas.

 

[tiffanistarr]

I usually move everything and everyone to the beaches and then I flatten everything and then take my map and kinda plan where I want rivers and cliffs to go and then start the build process. There usually needs to be some tweaks a long the way just because the game is so finicky about certain things.

 

[Bob Zombie]

@tiffanistarr has the right idea about going bold and then flatten/rebuild. If you're worried about doing everything in one go, split your island into 4 grids and then time travel as you move builds/houses around. I usually try to move stuff to one grid, get a grid perfect, time travel, move stuff again, time travel, etc. If you don't time travel, you can be surprised when things don't quite look right the next real Earth day and it will frustrate you immensely.