My Map and need advice

[Yandor]

Well hello, and thanks for having such an awesome community, I am new as this is my first post, I've actually been here for a few weeks (maybe months now) but needless to say I never joined just looked, got ideas and information on things.

I've been drawning maps for a few years, nothing big just a thing here and there and making entire worlds out of them. I plan on writting novels and what not around them, I figure its easier to make a world and its background history then it is to create a story in the middle of an imaginary world.

This is the latest world I've been working on, its very simple and well I didn't know if I wanted to make it complicated by adding in a lot of islands (good bad?) Anyways I've never been good at placing things where they are suppose to, a lot of mountains where there should be grasslands, rivers when there should be deserts (hope you get the idea)

The first image is the entire Northern half of the world (plan on making a southern half some day) So The island arch next to Islands (below Isania)and Cairan's islands and the penisula of Cairan's mainland are part of the Tropical climate(Cairan has the jungle to help show, Lime Green) and the polar is from the Isania's top left penisula reaching up into the middle of Maug and through the middle of Sinala. The inbetween is temperate, so you can get the idea of what I'm trying to accomplish and maybe help those trying to help me.

The second image is Cairan, detailed out to what I just randomly threw in, I put some thought into it but once things got down I kind of just altered never fixed

Red - Region/Kingdom lines (each area is a providence belonging to a nation)
Green - Grassland
Dark green - Forest
Lime green - Jungle
Blue Green - Swamp
Blue - Water
Grey - Mountains
Hope thats all of them

Well in all I was hoping you guys could help me fix my map to make it more realistic or just simply better. Cairan is the most detailed part of the map I've done, and was wondering if its ok or if things could be fix, most of all I was hoping maybe some help on placing lakes and rivers on it.

Well I think thats what I wanted, haha I am sure I'll read this again and realize I was missing a few things but any help would be great, and any advice would be probably used or put into great deal of thought

P.S. The world is based on a medieval/ancient setting, so no nuclear, or sci-fi stuff =D, its magical and had gods nuture the land along for awhile, and then were killed off

[Beowulf]

Wow, very nice! The only minor "criticism" that I have is that, if that's basically the "known world," the whole thing is a bit too square. Now I have the same problem, so it's a minor quibble- it's easy to create the world within the framwork of the 8.5x11" mindset of a peice of paper or computer screen. I've been using Fractal Mapper v8.0 and one neat feature it has is Globe View. Your map can be displayed on a spinning gloe; this really helps visualize it in terms of being on a real planet. Not useful if your world isn't round, of course.

Overall a very fine set of maps.

[Torq]

Welcome Yandor. I believe this community is one of the friendliest, helpful and useful out there. I'm sure you'll get all the help you need, to take your maps to the next level.

I agree with Beowulf's comments. In order to give better advice it would be useful to know what program you used to create the maps. On your Cairan map I would start by suggesting that the scale of the map means the lines marking the borders should be thinner. Also the effect of only drawing some of the borders can be quite confusing, I would suggest completing them, even though the terrain features might be natural borders themselves. Also I think the map could do with more contrast between land and sea. The dark blue of the sea and the dark green of the land are IMO a littel too close. Maybe you should try experimenting with more colour contrast there.

Cheers
Torq

[Beowulf]

Just as an example of what I'm talking about, Yandor, here's an old campaign map (hand drawn, obviously) that displays my "inside the box/paper-shape" thinking.





My creativity got constricted by the shape of the page. Easy to do. Obviously your map is much better and more refined than my 15 year old hand drawn one, but you get my meaning.

[Beowulf]

But let me backpeddle a bit...depending upon your purpose it may not matter. Many of us here are preoccupied with creating plausible, Earth-like worlds that "obey the rules." I recall that you plan to base fantasy novels upon your creation. I think of the maps of many very popular fantasy novels and they don't make a lick of sense when viewed from the standpoint of geology or plate techtonics. But in fantasy the sun may be a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire and the stars may be pinholes in the curtain of night. Who's to say your map won't serve your purpose? It's a fine looking effort in any event.

[ravells]

Welcome Yandor! I do like the internal waterways in Insania - interesting patterns. Is there a particular type of 'look' that you're going for? What would be helpful is if you could post a map from a book or the web showing the sort of style you had in mind, and as Torq asked told us a bit more about what sort of software you were using. We could then make suggestions as to how to achieve that style. Very often the act of just observing carefully the map style you want to emulate will be enought to give you a sense of direction.

Cheers

Ravs

[Yandor]

so I tried to flatten it out to create more of a Valley, or flat lands, plains etc I don't know if I personally like the effect so far, but what do you guys think?

First photo is the original with no touch up
Second photo is the after touch up - I don't like the way I did the rivers connecting to the mountains so I'll be fixing that

Any comments are welcome!

[ravells]

I think the general shape of the island is looking wonderful.

I think you might need more subtlety in the gradations of colour and to desaturate all the colours somewhat. There's a really loud flourescent green which is very distracting (imo).

I'm not sure why but there's been a recent shift in the Guild to this style of map!

(I blame Pyrandon, RobA and Torq!).

[RobA]

(I blame Pyrandon, RobA and Torq!).

I blame my lack of artistic talent that prevents me from actually drawing

-Rob A>

[Yandor]

Thanks ravells, I was getting to that conclusion too, I've got my map sitting as my background, so I just sit and stare when I am "stuck" on what to do, and yeah the color is a bit bright, so I'll see what I can do, and I agree with Rob, its a lack of artistic talent =D