Physical Map of the World of Tethadrias

[Engris]

Here is my first version of the World of Tethadrias, in physical map form. I used Photoshop CS4 and a Wacom Tablet. It took approximately 7 hours. I used a few techniques from the wonderful tutorials, Ascension's Atlas Style Tut and the Saderan Map Tut, so thanks to the creators of those! I also brought in some of my own techniques for a combination that I am pretty pleased with. I will be adding physical feature names (mountains, lakes, etc.) soon to create a second version of this map, which I will also post here when finished.

Please do critique! I'd love to know what you guys think!
Physical WorldMap.jpg

[Engris]

On second thought, I am going to save the physical feature names for closer up single continent maps. So this will become the world overview basically. Critique away! It can't be perfect yet...or...can it?

[Engris]

Physical WorldMap.jpg
Updated version: Changed coloring a bit and added darkened areas representing swamps.

Seriously? No critique? I don't know whether I should be proud that nobody thinks somethings wrong or if I'm just talking to myself!

[occam99]

I'm very new to the community and digital mapping techniques in general so I can't offer any expert advice.

However, subjectively speaking, the wavy lines on the coasts don't do much for me. I love your land texturing, but it doesn't seem to gel with the hard outlines and those 'waves'. Also the lakes in Erelen may draw the attention of the river police - I'd assume the southern lake is fed from the nearby mountains, though, and it could be a question of scale that we don't see the feeders - the northern lake has no visible exit, however.

I do like your volcanoes, and that island to the north-west of Scortesia intrigues me.

[Engris]

A few fixes - softened the coastline a bit and changed the waves slightly. Also edited the coloring of the land a tad bit more.
You are correct in assuming that the southern lake in Erelen is fed from the mountains, it just isn't clearly shown on this map as this shows just the majorly important features, however, it will be on the closer up maps. The northern lake is absorbed into the ground and has a drainage system underground.
The intriguing crescent island near Scortesia is a volcanic island inhabited by a very powerful lich highly attuned to fire...and death...I have a website at www.tethadriasproject.webs.com that has a main storyline if you are interested. It's a pretty new site but it's coming along
Physical WorldMap.jpg

P.S. Any suggestions for a different coast line technique that would fit this map better?

[dasneviano]

I like your textures a lot, specially the little volcano island.
About the coastlines, I'd suggest tracing some 3 or 4 white lines around the continent, each slightly fainter and about 5pxs away from the one before. You probably know this, but an easy way of doing this is Ctrl-clicking your landmass layer, then choosing Expand on the Selection Menu, and then Stroke on the Edit Menu (x3). Also, both the compass and the little ship stand out in a weird way. They're too black for your map, I think. Maybe if you made them a shade of blue just a little darker than the sea it would better suit your style.
Other than that, I have no other suggestions for now! Good job!

[Lukc]

I would change the river heads. Those little fronds sticking out just look a bit ... like hydras. Or sea lillies.

[Engris]

I tried the expanding lines technique but I didn't like it much for this map. I'm thinking either stick with the waves and possibly change them a tiny bit somehow, or just have a slightly darkened area around the coast like this map:Physical WorldMap2.jpg
How does it look?
I did fix the river heads however. Interesting comment but now that I think about it they do look odd haha.
Also changed the color of the compass and ship to a dark blue.

[jfrazierjr]

To me, you have to many styles added in, especially with the first post.

Rivers: since you noted you used a tablet and PS, why are you not taking advantage of pressure scaling your brush size. River's don't start out the same width as they end up in the ocean, so I would suggest redrawing them with size based on pressure.

The Big lake in the upper continent should probably outflow into the smaller lake and then on into the Ocean, or at least outflow somewhere... Likewise the lake on the bottom left.

I would ditch the ship graphic totally since it's "old school" line are really does not match the map style, at least not to me... I am also iffy on the Compass for the same reason, but it's not quite as bad as the ship.

The river on the bottom right landmass should likely start more in the center of that mountain chain rather than at one edge and running through the entire chain to empty into the ocean. It's almost like it would be going up hill to make that journey.

BTW, you volcano's are really quite cool! The island one could use a but more work though. You have a small bit of light/shade to give it shape and form, but then you also have some funky dark lines on the ridgeline that just seem odd. Not quite sure what to say here...

You have a good start here(good colors), but just needs some more tweaking. Be careful on the bluring transition from mountains down, it's easy to make it look "fake". I would suggest if you could putting some type of texture that might be small, but not "tiny" to simulate hills instead of the hard blur(or perhaps in addition with a light blur)

Looking forward to seeing more of this as it develops.

[Engris]

Fixed pretty much everything as jfrazierjr suggested. I somehow didn't notice the funky lines on the mountain ridgelines sticking out, they are supposed emphasize peaks as shown in the Saderan tutorial, but not that much haha. I still wanted some sort of graphic in the ocean though so I tried by hand at a painted pair of shark fins image. I'm not the best artist but it doesn't look that bad...does it lol?Physical WorldMap2.jpg
Also, which coast looks better for this map? Wavy lines as in the first few images or just a simple darkened area as in the most recent two images?