Looking for some help and suggestions with my first regional map

[FrancescoDS]

Good evening!
This is my first mapmaking post in this forum, and I hope to not ashame myself too much with my poor art.
I browsed various tutorials suggested in the forum, tried them and in the end I found that I prefered the style from Saderan's tutorial, so I spent some hours on it, starting on a land outline I already decided for my campaign. The almost-finished result is the following (the original is 3500x2500):
geintamesh-ridotta.jpg

There are still some missing elements: I still need to make the lava and the lake water more realistic, also I haven't touched the minor islands yet.
I stumbled on size issues, because I needed a map that was big enough for players to need at least 2 weeks to move from one side to the other, so I chose a 1:1mln scale, where 1 cm on the map is 10km! thus the volcanos (both the active and the lake one) are a bit oversized... i made real poor initial designing, but i don't want to trash all my work right now...
Right now, i need some suggestions on:
-How to make coastal cliffs that will fit with this style, and also how to transition from cliff to beach (some of those inlets will be beaches!
-The volcanic lake on the right (the one with the island in the middle) will need to be some sort of gondolin-style settlement: there will need to be a grassy valley near that lake, that will host a big village/small town.
-how to make a good swamp that fits this style: the huge crater on the right of the map (the one filled by the sea, whose perimeter is defined by the circular inlet and the surrounding islands) will need to be an huge swamp... actually, beach (near the coast) fading to swamp (center) fading back to regular sea (surrounding islands)
also, any other input will be welcome! remember i'm a total newbie, this is actually my first shot at mapping, since I was tired of my horrific handmade sketches!

Thanks a lot

-Francesco

[Azélor]

1:1mln scale, where 1 cm on the map is 10km! thus the volcanos (both the active and the lake one) are a bit oversized...

Actually, that doesn't mean anything until you print it. If you print at a really high dpi, your would map could fit in 1 cm, in theory but the printer won't be able to show the details.
Or you could cover a full wall with the map if you choose to.

will need to be an huge swamp... actually, beach (near the coast) fading to swamp (center) fading back to regular sea (surrounding islands)

I don't think that the beaches and the swamps fit well together. It would be one or the other.

[FrancescoDS]

Actually, that doesn't mean anything until you print it. If you print at a really high dpi, your would map could fit in 1 cm, in theory but the printer won't be able to show the details.
Or you could cover a full wall with the map if you choose to.

Yep, sorry, I forgot to mention that the map will fit an A3 sheet, and on photoshop I used a reference grid with 1cm squares (for players I will convert that to an hex grid though)

I don't think that the beaches and the swamps fit well together. It would be one or the other.

Indeed, sorry for my bad english. By beach I didn't mean a sandy playa with umbrellas, just a slow descent into the sea as opposite to a cliff.
The idea is that the island was shaped by a lot of vulcanic activity. The main and most ancient crater would be my wanna-be-swamp (the biggest gulf, the one on the east, whose shape vaguely resembles a circle, if you add the border islands), made swamp by the suplhureous and volcano-ish exalations!