Alderon Sort-of Satellite Map

[Nonfavourite]

So, uh, first map and first post. Be gentle with me...

Anyway. Alderon is a working title, especially considering I am almost 100% certain I saw a map with a really similar name recently. The idea was to get the elevation worked out before I started adding details to the overall world, so I wouldn't place a city on top of a mountain or have roads running over cliffs or anything. I'd love to hear some thoughts on the best way of expressing mountains and valleys etc. without any specialized programs?

I've put the scale in, but as a general idea the country is meant to be roughly the size of Finland. I also reduced the image size so it wasn't so excessive, and I don't think that this did anything drastic to the image quality, but let me know if it's super pixelated.

[Freodin]

It is not a style I would be competent to comment on, except to say: it looks amazing.

But I have to ask... 139.2 km? Why???

[EricPoehlsen]

That is an excellent question, Freodin.

I would reduce the bump-level/specular-level of the ocean map a little bit ...

[Nonfavourite]

139.2km mostly because I just can't get my head around numbers... I worked out the scale of the map as 1cm = 23.2km, and then couldn't make my head do the calculation for making the scale slightly less uh... ridiculous. I'm also not 100% certain that I have worked out the scale perfectly, as, again, numbers don't do well in my brain.

[Nonfavourite]

In a brilliant move, I deleted my original editable copy of this, so I couldn't go and mess around with it like I would have liked to. I changed the levels and saturation on the water, though, is it better this way?