An untitled world

[LS-Jebus]

I've spent much time lately experimenting with various styles, so I've created dozens of partially finished maps... I like this one the best so far.

Its a semi-realistic atlas form. The world has no name, and its pretty undeveloped. What I have done is the terrain; I am still working on the mountains, then adding some forest and farmland detail, and resolving errors in logic, like some rivers [I based the rivers around the initial general map with mountains scribbled in, so of course they require a bit of tweaking after doing the terrain effects].

The world was created in the same way as my last map project - getting an idea of what shape the world will be, then designing it around that idea - in this case, one continent divided into a larger southern region containing mostly grasslands, light forest, and desert, and a northern region, colder, with more mountains, and water on both sides of the continent.

I used the good old technique of generating clouds, playing with the threshold, then cutting and pasting bits of shoreline and lakes to make something more continent-ish.

Its all done in PS7. Its a good program for this, although I wish I had an updated version...

[Gandwarf]

I like what you got so far. The landmass looks nice as do the colors. The rivers are a bit pronounced, but I think it will turn out all right once you add mountains, forests and farmland (the rivers will then attract less attention).

Have some rep for posting your first map, even though it's a work in progress!

[LS-Jebus]

Yeah, the borders will be toned down after the terrain work is done. Probably a softer brown for the rivers and lakes that will work better with the terrain colours.

[Jykke]

Like Gandwarf said, pretty nice start but the rivers need some touching up. Maybe make the rivers a bit more narrow at the places where they start. Increasing working resolution also might help with the issue (if you aren't already working with higher res than on the picture you posted on the forum) Thumbs up!

[Ascension]

As for the rivers on this kind of style I might go with the old simple black line. Pretty snazzy, though, so keep going.

[LS-Jebus]

The .PSD is much larger than this jpeg, because I know how much better it is to work on a large canvas for detail, and be able to shrink the completed piece a bit.

Any suggestions for rivers, forests, cities, etcetera are always appreciated.

[CartoGeo]

The .PSD is much larger than this jpeg, because I know how much better it is to work on a large canvas for detail, and be able to shrink the completed piece a bit.

Any suggestions for rivers, forests, cities, etcetera are always appreciated.

I like the map except for the mountains. You just have to the ones you have more pronounced and 'higher' then the current ones you have.

[LS-Jebus]

I agree. Its my first time doing textured raised mountains, so they need a fair bit of work to look more like mountains and less like rocky plains.

edit: also, I made another river layer where the rivers are very narrow black lines - it does look better.

[Steel General]

It's coming along nicely, a few tweaks here and there and you'll have yourself a map to be proud of.

[LS-Jebus]

Okay, an update with another version...

I'm working on forests still, and haven't added human aspects yet, but I have done a lot of tweaking with terrain, and especially the mountains. They aren't perfect, but I like the look better.