Ghaveria

[Wormivich]

Tool: Gimp

This is my first ever created map, thus it's not quite up to par with a lot of other people up here. But it's all about practice, practice, practice, right?

Brushes Used:
http://browse.deviantart.com/resourc...tains#/d2ancg7
http://calthyechild.deviantart.com/a...shes-138796530

Texture Used:
http://struckdumb.deviantart.com/art/Old-Paper-85821415

Most of the technique I used are based off of Jezelf's tutorial. I had to improvise a few steps since I couldn't figure out how to do the channel stuff in Gimp.

So, yeah. Here's my first attempt.

Ghaveria.png

[afters]

I like the color and style of this map, although I'm not a big fan of the brushes. That, however, is a matter of personal choice. I do have a feeling the River Police will be issuing you several tickets for violations related to the several rivers on this map that run from coast to coast. This doesn't generally happen since water runs downhill, and even areas that are "flat" have a slight grade running toward the coast. Also, the spot in the middle where the two rivers cross will almost never happen. In a place where two rivers meet, the result is almost always going to be a merge to one waterway. The map also seems a bit featureless without a sense of scale. Is this a continent or an island. If it's only a smaller island, it is fine, but a continent of this size would, I feel, have a little more to it. The placement of mountains and forests also seems to be arbitrary, making no geological or scientific sense. These things are not necessarily absolute, and for an RPG setting or something of that sort it is okay, but having the placement of these features make some sense adds a little more realism to your map.

[Wormivich]

Thanks for the feedback. Perhaps I should look at actual maps more next time to try to make placement more realistic. I didn't even think about most of the stuff you brought up. I'll definitely do more research before my next map.

[jbgibson]

RakeWorm, a good place to start would be Redrobes' excellent tutorial on How To Get Your Rivers In the Right Place.

I guess before making suggestions how you could tweak this map toward plausibility, I need to know what you intend to be the significance of the dark river segments and the lighter ones...?

[Wormivich]

Well, I was just trying to have larger and smaller rivers. Though the rest of the day after posting this I've been reading tutorials . . . and now I feel so embarrassed for posting this in the first place. =(

[Freodin]

No need to be embarrassed. The other commentors have already mentioned points where you could improve the map, but I'd say overall it is quite well done for a first map.
Even if you used brushes and a premade parchment, I think this map shows a lot of sense for style. I like the hand-painted feel of it, especially in the font and the compass rose. You could even strengthen this look if you exchanged the dotted lines you used for country borders to a similar painted style.


Finally a general point: I've seen this approach of brighter land / darker water over parchment in a number of maps. But I do wonder: how do people think an ancient artist would have achieved that effect?

[Veldehar]

Outside of the rivers it really a fine map, particularly for a first try. It has the feel for a rough adventure map, where detail isn't high.

[jbgibson]

Freodin: maybe a little tea-staining via watercolor brush, of just the coastal areas?

RakeWorm: No: Embarassment = verboten. Also no frownie called for. It's a good start - enough to entice several of us to encourage you to make it better ! If t'were embarassingly inept, it would just be ignored. You'll get it; "just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

I bet you could get rational river networks out of this by just selectively erasing a few segments.

[Slylok]

I like the style and i like the font. I think using some different mountain brushes instead of just the same one will really help it out. some sort of border would be cool too. keep it up.