Continental map of Nerrac

[Eld]

Hey guys,

I want to show you the map of my world Nerrac. I'm building the world for almost 5 years now and I am busy with the map since last year's Easter. I use a pencil and the Gimp software.

The map is the second version of my continental map. The first one was hand drawn and scanned but figured out to be too small for showing all the details I want it to have. So I made 25 shreds out of it, which I printed much larger and traced them on a new paper to get it sharper and more detailed. This new parts I scanned and puzzled them together.
It came out to be as much work as it sounds and it took me about 100h of work to get the new, bigger, more detailed blank map on the computer.

I did it this way for two reasons, firstly I like the hand drawn style and secondly I wasn't able to produce such a style at the computer at that time. Nowadays I'd start and try it with the software to save time.

The first picture shows the map with the political overlay as it existed last Wednesday, before I started to improve both style and content of the map.

Nerrac Map Previous.jpg

The second image shows the map as it looks right now. I coloured the land, made a contrast on the coastline, added many countries and discovered how to lay a text along a path.
Also I added some empty space to the right where I wish to make the legend and that stuff.

Nerrac Continental Map WIP 1.jpg

I know, they're quite big, the real properties are 13700x8550px, as I wanted it to become a map suited for many details. If it's finished one day, I'll let it print and hang it on the wall above my bed.

Yeah, that's it. Feel free to comment, criticise and so on.
I'm especially interested in questions of colour. Are the countries too bright or not bright enough? Are the colours themselves suitable or is yellow just akward for a great nation?

Greetings,
Eld

[Gold]

It's nice work, starting by drawing by hand as you did. Is there a scale in miles / km? I like the colors for the political boundaries, countries, so the yellow is fine. However the ocean is too blue for my taste, maybe too much saturation or too bright, perhaps consider making the seas more navy or muted color, and perhaps fade to a deep ocean color offshore. The mountains look pretty cool to me.

The network of rivers is impressive and largely believable, to me, but I am unsure about the hydrology in Kheiol ending in that largest lake, and the inland sea with islands in the unlabled Northwest region. Maybe those 2 great lakes or seas should have a river outlet that eventually flows to the global ocean.

Thank you for sharing your work in progress

[- Max -]

Too many bright/saturated colors for my personnal taste, so for me it justs spread attention. I'd prefer less satured colors on this kind of map to give it more harmony but like I said, it's just a personnal taste. Also some lables still need some work (some are overlapping borders and the curve of "Stammeskoalition der...." doesn't look very nice).

[Eld]

Thanks for the comments.

Today I have new images for you. The first one shows the map without the countries coloured, so I like to speak of this version as the natural one. Though I overlayed the names and the borders as I just like it this way. As you can see, I desaturated the ocean colours a bit as Gold supposed and it fits very well. A scale is also integrated (not at its final position).

Nerrac Continental Map Normal View.jpg

The second pic shows the realms again, where I had some progress lately. The borders of the western countries are coloured and some labels were fixed (the Stammeskoalition e.g.)

Nerrac Continental Map Political View.jpg

I have two questions.
The first concerns the font of the state name labels. Many people who've seen it, read the small 'r' as a small 'i' which supposes, that the font is questioned in its legibility. What do you think? Could one read it well or should I go on and search for another? (I'd prefer to keep it as I judge it as light, clear and somehow representative enough for states) The thing is, until it's clear whether I keep the font or not, I can't label any new realms or redo some of the failed labels.

The second question is more difficult. It's still about the colours of the countries. It's very difficult to me to decide which colours to use. Maybe it's because I have been staring at the map every empty minute since last Wednesday and I got used to them...

The final picture shows some symbols I invented for my map. They're nothing special, but I hope them to be better than the boring red dots that you could find as the capital city symbols on the current map. At the moment I'm quite unsatisfied with the unsharp look of the city symbols which stems from using the brush creating them. If you know a way to create sharp circles, please tell me.

Nerrac Continental Map symbols.jpg

Thanks for any comments, criticism and, of course, praise.

[- Max -]

I already stated my mind about the colours
Indeed the "r" letter is a bit confusing on this font. The map symbols looks good but you should try them on map to see how it turns with some of them labelled.

[Eld]

The GAU happened. Gimp crashed while saving. Therefore the original map data file has lost its worth as the most important layers are missing. So I'm thrown back at a copy of the file from Wednesday last week, causing a lost of 25-30 hours of work.
I was so close to kill Gimp, my computer screen and my laptop.

Now, on the other hand I managed to save the new settlement layers. I simply have to redo the whole countries- and borders thing, the whole thing with the brightened coastlines of the sea and a dozen minor things.

As much time went into try and error, I assume that it'll take me only 5-6 hours to reach the status quo ante. And, as Max supposed, I could try out new colours for the countries.

[- Max -]

Happened to me lately so I feel your pain. Glad to see you don't give up though!

[Eld]

Just showing around a current WIP-picture, one week afther the great data loss.

I made use of the need of redoing many things by changing the shape of the continent at some regions, especially in the North.
I added some lakes and some islands, built a frame to the map and made the northern tropic and the northern Arctic circle visible.

I still need to finish the styling of the lakes and the coast and the biggest part of work: redoing the political layer with the states.

But now I'm much more satisfied with the shape of the continent and the colours of the Sea. So it seems, in the end the great crash had its good part.

Nerrac Continental Map Redo 1.jpg

[Eld]

Today something different.

As I wanted to prevent me from getting bored while colouring my map, I thought what the continent in the south of the known landmass will look like.

So I tried out. You could see my first thoughts attached. It's the same scale as the known continental map. The original size is 10k x 7,5k pixels and each 1000 px are 1000km.
The equator is somewhere in the middle of the map so it's a tropical land in the center and a quite arid one on its northern and southern borders.

The first draft of the continent of Vetronia. Coastlines are quite rough and will change in some or many details.
Vetronia WIP 1.jpg

Once Vetronia becomes a mapping project in its own right (depending on the speed of finishing the current project to my satisfaction) it will have its own WIP thread here.

[sirsig]

WOW, I really love what your doing here. I'm in a similar position position of trying to get a scrapbook full of hand drawn maps (of my main continent) into Photoshop for the moment. But I keep getting stuck determining size/scale/pixels etc. Im curious on you dimensions for your main drawing/map