Yet Unnamed Single Continent [First Map]

[narogi]

Hi Everyone,

this is my first mapping in the Guild.
I run a home made role playing campaign and this map will be the map of the known world for my campaign setting.
It is sill work in progress and not the first concept I have tried
I used a lot of tutorials from various Guild members, but I modified them on so many ways, that I almost could say I have an own mapping style... or something very similar
If I finish this map I will summarize all tutorials and material that I used.
I use The GIMP and Wilbur for mapping, and some hand-drawing with a Wacom Bamboo Pen or Paper+Scanner, which I try to keep at an absolute minimum, till my hand-drawing skills are not quite good.

Every Comments are Welcome, I need still a lot to learn.

The Map see below or in my Gallery:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...chmentid=32323

Unnamed_Continent.jpg

Thanks for reading!

[Gidde]

Have some rep for posting your first map, it's looking pretty good so far! I'll wait for critiquing until you've got a little more done

[narogi]

Thanks a lot.
There is a lot of work to do on it.
The next step is some more impressive foliage, but I work on it mostly only at weekends, so a weekday update is very unlikely...

[Katto]

Looks very good for a first map, narogi! As Gidde said it is difficult to give critique at this stage, but your on the way to a nice map. Personally I like a simple scale even at the first stages of a map to get a feeling for the dimensions. Also check out Old Guys' tutorial about creating realistic coastlines, it will help a lot.
Have some rep for your first map!

[jtougas]

Looks good to start I'll be watching eagerly oh and have some rep!!

[narogi]

Thanks for everyone.
The Scale of the map is currently not fix, I still need to figure it out.
The Picture is 2500 x 2500 px, I thought so that 1 or 2 px = 1 km
The landmass is about 50,2% of the picture, so it is about 800 000 - 3 000 000 square km
I prefer smaller scale and more detailed maps, so probably I will choose the smaller version...
I don't really want to do a big map, where all I know is the name of the countries and the 5 biggest city on the continent.
But I also should keep in mind that the world is high magic and technology something between steam-punk and middle-ages so if it's very small the exploring aspect of the Campaign is not relevant.
So I still need to figure out very much details and there is a lot of mapping to do.
I plan the next update at weekend, probably Sunday...

[narogi]

Hi again everyone.
I had not so much time this weekend for mapping, but I worked a bit on the project.
I redesigned my rivers, to feel a bit more realistic and I altered a bit the Texture of the landmass.
But I did not manage to make the forests.

I hope that I will have more time next week.

All comments are welcome.

Here is the current version.
Unnamed_new_rivers.jpg

Update:

I worked a bit on the texture of the land, and I think this should be the final version.

Unnamed_Land.jpg

I was thinking a lot about whether or not I need some kind of delimiter that helps to see where the sea really ends and where the shore begins.
How do you think is the current texture and shading enough for that role? Or do I need to highlight the shoreline a bit more?

Anyway, at this point I want to say, that the sea/ocean around the continent is not really sea, it is an ocean of clouds instead.
Only the inner seas are really water. I only found it easier to make a conventional map at first and than modify the outer regions later.
It looks better, as if it would empty.

The concept behind my setting is geographically something similar to the swashbucklers of the seven skies or the very old "floating isles" world concept from many DnD books.
Its not very original alone, but I am going to fill in a lot of details that gives a bit original flavor to it, and of course it is a home made campaign, so the only goal to achieve is to entertain my party

As always, many thanks for reading:
Narogi

[rdanhenry]

Floating islands go back a lot farther than D&D. Gulliver's Travels is the first I can think of off-hand, but it's probably a far older idea. Nothing wrong with using it again, but you're going to want to make it a lot clearer on your map.

[narogi]

Hello Everybody again.

I have re-done my rivers, again... hopefully the very last time.
Thanks to RobA for the Tapering Rivers with Inkscape and Gimp tutorial
I modified a bit the land texture again...
I also added an early version of the cloudy background, to see where the waters end and where the Ocean of Clouds begins.

The basic concept is, that the continent is floating in the air but there are big areas of open water in the inner deeper regions.
On the edge of the world there are giant waterfalls.

I also added the first chunk of forest but I need to work on the other forest areas.
I am still unsure whether the current forest texture the final is.

As always thanks for reading and all criticism is welcome.

Unnamed_Clouds.jpg

[jtougas]

Looks really good and a great concept