WIP - Legend of the Three Pillars - North

[occam99]

Well this is my first WIP thread here so, deep breath, here goes.

The map is the first of three continental maps for a homegrown high-fantasy RPG campaign called The Legend of the Three Pillars. It depicts the northern landmass of the known world, an area dominated by the Carathan Empire. I have been working through the tutorials here to find a style that I like, but am otherwise a complete newbie when it comes to digital mapping.

Drawn in Photoshop, using The Ascension's fantabulous continent tutorial.

I'm not entirely sold on my choice of font or labelling style but I wanted something clear and easy to read.

[Thesslian]

Nice. If those stars are not national capitals, I would change that, since on modern maps that is what stars typically indicate. Other than that very pretty.

[occam99]

Good point about the stars, thanks.

Second pass at labelling. The named places are the one's that are identified in my campaign lore so far.

I'm still not happy with the transition where the land meets the sea - it's very abrupt - but I've been messing with it all night and I CBA.

[razcor]

Legend of the Three Pillars is a cool name! Nice map, I really like reliefs and colors you used. Regarding the land/water transition, maybe the use of this color

water.jpg

makes too "hard" the transition between shallow and deep water, losing consistence.

A little critique on this lake:

lake.jpg

if the river is an effluent is unlikely to be able to climb the lake's depression, if it is a tributary is flowing in an unnatural direction (I'm doing a great workout on the "rivers" argument )

Hope it helps!

[Schwarzkreuz]

Here is my secret weapon for Fonts on maps with a nice old printed flavour and still very readable, I used it on my Arden map.

The IM Fell font family

[Riggamorphus]

I like where the oceans meet land. It looks like you have it under control. But the land might be a little dark. Maybe use some transitional colors along the shore. Great looking map so far.

Rigg

[occam99]

Well, I have made some edits, including a change in font (Thanks Schwarzkreuz), some extra brushwork around the lake Razcor pointed out, and a simple frame.

I'm going to call this done so I can move on with the next.

Thanks for the comments so far!