First real attempt

[Andrith]

Hell, new guy here\doing this and thought I would get some advice on how my map is shaping up. Been mashing my head on the wall in regards to rivers and mountains and its really slowing me down, got any advice for this eager new guy?

[hohum]

So far looks okay, my only question is why does the opacity seem lowered on the mountains? It would be better for the opacity of those to match that of the Forests. I would also suggest doing some more scratch coloring to flesh out where the Mountains, hills and forests go. These can even be scratch layers instead of final coloring layers. From there the rivers may present themselves.

[Diamond]

That's a great start, and welcome to the Guild.

As far as mountains on a coastal map like this, I'd take a look at your islands and decide if they were at one part joined to the mainland, back in the misty past. If that's the case, chances are they're at least somewhat mountainous since they're still above water. If there's mountains there, they're probably part of a larger chain that continues onto the mainland; the strait in between is a lower dip in the chain that allowed the sea to flood in. Or something like that.

Once you've got your mountains in, the rivers should come pretty naturally; remember rivers flow from high ground to low, and merge, not split, always following the path of least resistance. So depending on how many mountain chains you've got, you're most likely going to have at least two or three river systems, separate from each other.

Here's a rough little sketch to show you what I mean by the mountain placement:

[Andrith]

Thanks for all the help, and a huge thank you to Diamond for the paint over, that really helped me out. Now, about the size of my mountains, are they ok because I feel they may be too small at a distance and don't read too well, rather they form a brown moosh?

[Diamond]

Honestly, I think it depends on how much 'stuff' you're going to include on the map. If it's going to be packed full of forests, cities, towns, keeps, ruins, etc etc, with everything labeled, then I'd keep the mountains the same size or possibly just a smidge bigger. But if the map's going to be less saturated with detail, I'd increase the mountain size quite a bit, to help fill in some empty space. One thing you could also do is put a light texture on the land to give it some body and break up the monotonous green.