Kingdom of Rothon - My very first map

[kerub]

Hey everyone. I am completely new to this whole cartography-thing and this morning I stumbled upon this great site. I came here because I am thinking about a fantasy-setting for a videogame, and at one point I thought "Well, there HAS TO BE a map of the world!". I googled a bit, found my way here and looked at some of the maps and finally, I grabbed Photoshop and tried for myself.

I call it the Kingdom of Rothon, but actually this has nothing to do with the world I am dreaming about, it's merely a test-map. I was lazy, so almost all names are from name generators by the way There is a version with labels and one without. The main shape is randomly generated in Photoshop, same goes for the woods. The dotted lines are the main trade routes between the different settlements.

Please comment and critique!

rothon.jpg rothon_no_labels.jpg

[Troedel]

Great first map. I really like the variable hight the terrain has. The woods are a bit flat for my taste, just try to integrate them more, perhaps just a tiny little dropshadow. Perhaps you can scale down the mountain texture a bit to match it with the size of a mountain range. Have some rep for this great first try!

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Kerub! That's a very respectable first map.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Master Rahl372]

Great map! The colors are really nice. However I hate to be the one to point this out but some of the rivers don't make sense.
For instance the northern most river can't split away from the one leading into the lake. You could change that and have that river flow out from the lake instead.
Also the lake in the south works except for the fact that it has two rivers out-flowing. If a river has two out flows, one will eventually dry up leaving just one.
Here's a great guide to rivers and how they work:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...ght-place.html

[kerub]

Thanks everyone for the nice words!
Troedel, I will try out what you mentioned. Thanks for the advice.
And master rahl, yes I already had the feeling that something was wrong with my rivers. I read through that post (and the other one that was linked inside) and i think I learned quite a bit. Thank you.