My first World Map - Need Ideas to finish it.

[Bogie]

This is my first attempt at a world size map, and I need some ideas how to finish it off to make it look a little more complete.

The map was made entirely in DundJinni. DJ is not made for this kind of world scale mapping but it can be adapted for it.
The land mass is large forest covers that Kepli made, stitched together. Then I painted over it with a water texture and
traced the edge with a rocky edge. Next I placed some iso mountain pieces and drew in the rivers. I found a bunch of castle
and village tokens to use. The Name Labels were made in Photoshop then pasted on the map as were the old woodcut images.

So, any Ideas? Legend, Borders, More detail, Less detail?

This is a lower res version. I'll post the high res when it is done. Thanks

B'Lerrian-WIP_bg.jpg

[EricPoehlsen]

Nice map, yet I think there are a few things you might want to change. You mixed symbols from many different styles. The mountains have their shadows face east, many castles and cities have a shadow facing west. You might want to mirror that symbols to have a shadow on the same side.

Additionally, world maps are projections of a sphere onto a plane, so one axis more or less is half the circumference, while the other axis is the full circumference. If you stretch the canvas (not the content) to a 2:1 ratio and fill it left and right with water it would give it as world map a lot more credibility...

[Hai-Etlik]

Additionally, world maps are projections of a sphere onto a plane, so one axis more or less is half the circumference, while the other axis is the full circumference. If you stretch the canvas (not the content) to a 2:1 ratio and fill it left and right with water it would give it as world map a lot more credibility...

This is only true of the Tangent Equidistant Cylindrical Projection (aka, Platee Carre or Equirectangular). A projection which has some uses, but isn't a very good choice for general reference maps due to rather unpleasant looking distortion in the higher latitudes. Which also means that simply expanding the map to 2:1 wouldn't help, as it wouldn't address the lack of appropriate distortion or the scale of the visible features.

Of course, the OP has since clarified that it's a 'world' in the sense of 'old world' and 'new world' rather than in the sense of 'planet', which fixes everything reasonably well.

[Bogie]

Thanks for the comments. I guess I shouldn't have called this a World Map as it covers a much smaller area than a full planet, I think the whole area of land mass shown would be about the total size of Australia, if Australia broke into 4 pieces. What type of map would you call it?

The easiest fix would be to mirror the mountains to match the Cities shadows.

[ravells]

The thing that stands out the most for me are the different styles of symbols you've used as Eric has already said. The Map's got a nice vibe to it though.

[Bogie]

Thanks for the advice. I made the icons more consistent and took the shadows off of the city icons so they don't conflict with the mountains. I found a nice parchment to use for the legend and made an attempt at a border (needs something better though)

B'lerrian-Map2.jpg

[Bogie]

I think It's finished (unless you spot something I missed and need to fix it)

I've made many battlemaps, but this is the first Regional Map I've done, so a lot of things were different I it was a bit of a learning curve. Fortunately, lots of great maps at CG to get ideas from.

Let me know what you think.
Thanks

B'Lerrian-102.jpg

[Freodin]

I'd say: well done!

I was about to remark that the variety of styles you used for the ships was a little... erratic, but I see you have noticed that yourself and changed it.