[WIP] Arabia Felix Map (ca. 270 B.C.)

[Kilo11]

Arabia Felix
(Ca. 270 B.C.)

For those of you who don't me, I am more a writer than a mapper, but I love maps, and wouldn't ever dream of writing a book that doesn't have at least a couple maps to accompany it. Thus, my mapping is often very closely related to writing projects I am currently working on, or which I plan to get to sometime in the future (with me always banking on the fact that there is an infinite timeline of "in the future" ). This map is no different. It is for a book I am getting close to finishing (if you're interested, hit the link in my signature; that leads to the ongoing installments of my book). The story is set in Arabia in Antiquity, and a good portion of it takes place in the lands of southern Arabia, in particular what is today Yemen, southwestern Saudi Arabia, and western Oman.

The map includes those things that are relevant for the story itself (mountains, notable deserts, wadis, and cities), and is meant to have an old feel to it. Any thoughts and suggestions on it are more than welcome. In particular, thoughts about colors, fonts, font colors, or mountains are things I would heartily welcome. And at the very least, I hope you all like the map!

### Latest WIP ###
Arabia Felix (parchment back2).png

[Levtrona]

The fonts are very nice. What are they? I like the overall clear style.
If you like some feedback:
the only suggestion would be to try dim the red a tad to a more dusty tone.
And some space to the south and west for composition?
An Arabic version would be great.
And one more little detail: the A in Adedou Kome is partly in the water. If you put wadi dayan underneath and Adedou Kome on top of the river the swoosh of the A would start perfectly at the city point. But then its "crossing" the river?

Just playing around with those details.

Looking forward to read the story.

[Shamension]

I really like it. The colours give it a lovely old world feel.

Feedback wise, as Levtrona said, taking the red back a touch, a dustier tone or maybe even a burgundy I think would look great.
Size is a big deal in type, so I'd use larger type for more important areas. An alternative to this is reducing the saturation, the stronger the colour the more it will draw the eye. I noticed you used black for rivers but used the same colour for cities as for regions. You could think about making a kinda legend/style guide, so Rivers = black, regions = bright red, cities = deep red, towns = etc etc .

I'd consider what in your story is the most important and really highlight those features. So when the reader opens the map they get pulled to that important points before their eye explores the page.

Great work! I look forward to seeing it develop!

[Kilo11]

Hey mappers! Sorry for taking two weeks to get back to you both here (I was working on my entry for the current mapping challenge, and busy with writing in my other "off-time").

As to your suggestions, I really like them all, and will definitely play with them each in turn and see how they affect things. The dustier red totally makes sense, and is something easy to try new things with. I also think a legend would indeed be super helpful. I will look for some nice scroll images on DeviantArt to get myself a basis for the legend, and then see how it shakes out. Hopefully I'll have a newer version sometime this week. There was one thing I wasn't quite sure about in the suggestions above though:

And some space to the south and west for composition?

I am not sure I follow what the idea is here. What exactly do you mean by this Levtrona?


EDIT: I am playing around with things right now, and I am realizing I do not actually know what is meant by a "dustier red"... Do you mean having a red that has more orange to it, or more brown, or more brick-colored? I just think I need more concrete guidance in order to try out your suggestion here.

[Levtrona]

I am not sure I follow what the idea is here. What exactly do you mean by this Levtrona?


.

The southern coast is nearly touching the paper border, so it is getting a bit lost. A tiny bit more water to the south? Just to polish up the composition. Either way: really beautiful artwork.

[Kilo11]

Ah. Now I see what you mean. I will see about adding a bit more height then. It will mean finding the exact scale of my source maps again, and then clipping another panel to the bottom edge, but it shouldn't be too difficult.

Regarding the red of the text, can you clarify what you mean by "dustier" in your suggestion above? Do you mean more sandy-colored (e.g. orange-ish), or rather brick-colored, or maybe something more brownish? I tried some different colors, but I was finding that most things that were more in the orange direction were harder to read, and one's in the wine/burgundy direction looked too elegant to my eye, if that makes any sense. I am definitely willing to try some more colors, but I am just wondering what precisely you had in mind.

[Levtrona]

I only meant to play around with the colors see how it works. Sometimes a tiny little deatil can change the allover look. Do it how you want to be done. its great as it is.

[Redrobes]

I'll just mention that if your doing a monthly challenge then you need the ### type wip tags but for normal threads there is no need. We use these wip tags to auto generate the thumbnails for the monthly challenge voting and the last wip tag in a thread is the thumbnail to use. So I hope that clarifies it.