Atlaea - Fantasy Map Commission

[jaceface]

Hello everyone! This is my first post and map, and seeing as to how this awesome community helped set me on the right track with it's tutorials and resources, I want to say thanks, and keep up the amazing artwork people!

Was originally contracted to do illustration artwork for a trading card game, but when my clients asked if I could do a map, decided to give it a whack, having wanted to for a really long time. Did a ton of research on this site first, and was going to use the lighting effects/relief trick for the mountains, but ended up drawing about 70% of them instead and clone-stamping the rest as they wanted more of a tolkienesque look. (photoshop cs6)

map_final_weathered_corrected.jpg

Close ups:

map_final_weathered_corrected_WEB_crop.jpg

map_final_weathered_corrected_WEB_crop2.jpg

From the website:

The peaceful alliance between the gods of Planet Spire has been broken. The dark god Xeon has betrayed the other gods, and has formed a very powerful army in the city of Vawen. He has commanded his army to conquer all of continent Atlaea in a quest for global domination. To start their path of destruction, Vawen defeated the neighboring city Haenna. As an ally of Haenna, Cree is in disbelief that their close neighbor has fallen at the hands of Xeon and his army. To avenge their fallen ally, Cree has declared war on Vawen in an attempt to end the city's ruination. It is with this that the war between Vawen and Cree has begun...

Also had the luxury of painting the locations featured in the map, if you're curious as to what they look like, here's a link!

[Ilanthar]

Great map and a very impressive first post. Nice colors and details (the scorched land is awesome). My only critique would be about the coastlines, they don't blend well with the background texture imho.

[fabio p]

Welcome to the Guild.
Your artistic skills are evident and you produced a fine map.
There are some river problems (splitting rivers) and some geographical/climatic oddities, but maybe you just had to conform to your client's needs.
Anyway, good job.

[Chick]

Hi jaceface, welcome to the Guild!

Very impressive map for your first post!

My only comment (other than the river problems already mentioned) is that your shoreline ripples are too heavy and solid. I would suggest softer, and fading with distance from the shore.

Cheers,
Cornelia

[Deadshade]

Great colors and textures. The northern forest blending in the ice and snow is great.
Like everybody else I find the coast ripples inconsistent with the rest and rather overwhelming.
Scale is not given so that it seems strange to have snow on the southern part of the continent where the climate should be warm perhaps even desertic depending on the scales.

Ah and you'll be soon caught by the river police

[Sapiento]

Good map, I like the colours adn textures.

[Eilathen]

Hello and welcome to the Guild!

A very nice first offering! Any chance for a higher resolution? I'd like to zoom in more to see details better.
As others said, there is no question that you have the artistic skills. There are some more scienc-y problems, as others have already mentioned (rivers, for example).
On the other hand, not every map has to abide by the laws we find on our earth...so...

[Azélor]

Welcome to the Guild!

I will second what the others said, it's a really well made map on the artistic side but poor on the scientific believability. I know authors have specific demands but it hurt me when it's so bad. It could be magic in 1 or 2 places but I don't understand why so much violations for absolutely no reasons.

I have highlighted in red the most problematic areas if you want to look into it. The red is to represent places when the river splits in two. That is every unusual, normally the river will join, not the opposite. Except in deltas were the accumulation of silt eventually modify the flow of water so it's separated. Not every rivers will have deltas, it depend. Fast and deep rivers will be able to carry more matter than large, slow and shallow rivers. The latter is more likely to form deltas. And rivers like the Nil that are subject to the monsoon (in the south) with a great fluctuation of it's level, will also carry a lot of silt.

Some rivers just flow in both directions, or it's just not possible to know. That's what the blue lines are for.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but overall the map is very good

Attachment 71503

[arsheesh]

Very nice work! And welcome to the Guild.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[- Max -]

Nice work. Besides the river issues already noticed, there's a gap between the hand-drawn feeling and some digital elements (coastal rings, some texture on the Scorched Lands and ther North Wastes).