Zariyata Fantasy World (first map)

[Zaris]

Hello to everybody,
First of all, please excuse my rather poor English, as I am not a native speaker.

For some time i started writing on one of my fantasy novels that happens in the world of Zariyata. But as i continued writing, I have discovered that due to a lack of a proper map, there were certain inconsistencies in regard to distances and time travel. So i took a time of pause and decided to make the map that covers the most important part of the planet, where the main action takes place.

This was my first experience with Photoshop. It was much of a trial and error process. There are still many things that i would like to make to improve this particular map. There are still many rough edges.

The brushes for mountains and forests were taken from the internet and then used to give life to the relief. The painting of the terrain has been done with small brushes, with low opacity. Afterwords, the colors where uniformed with the help of the „smudge / finger” tool.

I have added here and there images of characters and wildlife so one could make an image about what kind of people and wildlife are to be found in certain area. The place-names for certain regions where created from a conlang that i developed to a certain extent (with 2 dialectal variations), while for the others from less-developed conlangs or based on obscure ancient languages. I hoped that it would give a certain sensation of authenticity. However, to avoid overcrowding, i decided not to put all the names of all the features on the map.

I know the font might be not easy to read, but it is a map to be used together with the book, when it eventually will be published...

Any suggestions and help for improvement is more than welcome...

[Tom]

Hello Zaris!
Nice map for a first work!, I like the idea of characters and beasts, and you used the smudge tool pretty fine! I recognize StarRaven's brushes, a lot of people (me included) used them, they are so nice!
My only critique is that you could work a bit more on the sea: by playing with smudges and colors, adding monsters or portolan lines, or simply a more variated texture.
Anyway good job!

[Ghostman]

That's a very beautiful map. Colorful but not overmuch so. It could benefit from the adding of a frame around it's edges.

[J.Edward]

Hey Zaris, welcome to the Guild.
A very nice map for your first post.
The people and animals add a lot to the map.
Nice work.

[Wired]

Yeah, gotta chime in with the others here: really nice map, and you made good use of those brushes. The coloring looks really natural, too. It looks as if you used the bevel & emboss on the coastal layer and the labels. Personally, I don't like that as I think it collides with the style of the map. I think you could get a better/more in sync with the rest of the map coast by going for depth contours and a gradual change in the ocean color, and a simple stroke for the labels.