Sarnasia, Regional Fantasy Map

[Tzi]

So, as I grow in cartographic skills I've settled in on regional maps. Here I've done about 1/5th of a continent ideally.

SarnassusMain.png

Here is the current progress on this region called Sarnasia. Inspiration for this map might be apparent in that avid players of WoW might recognize the general shape of the land as reminiscent of southern part of the "Eastern Kingdoms" map. Totally not a coincidence, when I run low on ideas I do at times at least borrow shapes.

However with this map I am having a debate within myself of how to represent forests or if I should. I have one version with forests apparent.... (Link)

Should I directly represent forests or just label were large woodlands are?

[madbird-valiant]

My general rule for forests is I only represent forests on the map if they're actually a forest. Most of the maps I make are pretty much all woodland, but there is a difference between a place having trees and a place being a forest. So yeah, represent the proper forests on the map in some form I reckon. The attached tree test is okay for the scale/perspective you've got but it's a little bit flat.

[Tzi]

My general rule for forests is I only represent forests on the map if they're actually a forest. Most of the maps I make are pretty much all woodland, but there is a difference between a place having trees and a place being a forest. So yeah, represent the proper forests on the map in some form I reckon. The attached tree test is okay for the scale/perspective you've got but it's a little bit flat.

I might give them a texture like the ground has. My other option is just not to directly show a texture for forests and just simply label regions. Saving forest depictions for smaller regional maps. Unlike the inspiration map, this area is about 1/5th of a continent and substantively larger. Or I might label were a forest is with like Blank Forest and the ground will be a darker shade of green.

[madbird-valiant]

Yeah that would probably work going by the scale you're working on.