Journe - The Homeland of Men

[Martynas Martin]

So I've been working on a revamp of my old map, followed a couple of tutorials how to flesh out that parchment look and I think I got it right this time. Enjoy! Critique welcomed!

The file is too large, so here is a direct DeviantArt link: https://orig00.deviantart.net/29ef/f...sb-dc6rv24.jpg

[jbgibson]

Nice work! You have captured the style well. I like the implied variety of political hierarchy you show in the names. In this land, do they signify the same sort of hierarchy as in , say, Earth’s Europe? Lacking any ‘this is part of that’ indicators, it looks like an Earldom is the functional equivalent of an Empire, albeit a smidgen smaller...

You have good fonts in use. The ocean labels are a bit too obviously warped— you’re nominally trying to capture a hand- made old style on parchment, and visibly twisted letterforms clash. You may of course assert that ‘this artful warping is the age-old style of the West Dilnan Cartographers’ Union’ and let it go at that :-). But experience with earthly equivalents leads one to expect normal letterforms oriented along a curve. Before I learned software that would easily (and for me, cheaply :-) ) do text-on-path, I resorted to warping too... and I like my later curved text better. Your mileage may vary :-) - after all pleasing YOU is job #1 . Inkscape will do text on a curve nicely, and is free - plenty of other software does the same . It’s not too awkward a workflow to export a reduced resolution copy of the whole map, less curved labels, use as a guide in Inkscape, do the labels on another layer, export the text as an otherwise transparent image (gif, png maybe) and import as an overlay on your original map.

But that’s being picky, because you asked for suggestions. Even as-is I like it a lot! Do you plan to further refine it, or is it pretty much finished?

[Martynas Martin]

Thanks for the suggestions! To answer your questions, first of all, yes, "earldoms" and "kingdoms" can be sovereign on their own, or part of other countries. Because I have, as of today, only begun writing descriptions about the countries, at the time of making I wasn't really sure which states are entirely independent and which are vassals/protectorates/autonomies. I am still deciding on that. I know that in Earth's Europe, an earl or a duke usually doesn't rule a country that is equivalent to a Kingdom, but in my world both variants are possible. There are dukes that rule provinces of a country and dukes that are heads of sovereign states. So these titles definitely lose some of the political meaning, and mostly are just different titles for rulers, depending on the culture I was basing them on, or on other, specific reasons (for example, an Empire's still an Empire - it is expansionist, has protectorates, vassal states and colonies, all while being political powerhouse).

I am planning to do four continents in total, but to be honest, it will probably take a lot of time, because I want to keep shaping this continent - I am making a region-by-region atlas-style, where I write about the countries, notable places, structures, together with illustrations and such. It is a lot of fun to do after studies, and I don't want to rush it, so this project, as I imagine it, will be very time-consuming, if I don't lose interest.

Your suggestion to do warped fonts with Inkscape is very helpful, I will definitely use it in my future maps, thanks a lot.

As for this map, I'd say it's finished. I might add some very light mountain areas that don't take away from the parchment style, and remake the warped fonts now that I know how.

[damonjynx]

Nice map, love the borders.

[Martynas Martin]

Thanks! I actually thought they are too minimal, but I was wrong - less is better sometimes