First inky map

[Hefadmun]

Just recently finished my first sort of ink-based map. Or.. well it's not like... finished-finished... Still needs some roads and names.
I think this came out pretty well. What do you think?

[atpollard]

In general, I like it.

Some thoughts on making it even better ...
1. the whole composition may be a touch too dark. Since there seems to be some contrast between the land and sea, perhaps brightening the land just a little to better see the dark ink on a lighter background.

2. the waves at the waters edge should be removed from the compass ... it is not an actual coast ... and need to be added to the inland lakes/seas to better define them as coasts.

3. the textile texture is a little to coarse given the fine lines drawn on it ... it is a subtle tell, but one cannot draw on burlap with a fine tipped pen. If you want a map drawn on a very rough cloth, then the lines need to look more like they were drawn with a sharpie (broad tipped marker) and will have irregular 'jiggles' caused by the rough surface. Fine line work (like you show) requires a smoother surface ... a paper or fine linen.

4. your rivers need some adjustments. Think of a river like a tree growing from the coast inland, it only branches one way and starts out large at the base, but gets smaller as it grows further inland. Lakes can have multiple rivers that flow into them, but only one river that flows out (and to the coast). Rivers start at the high points (inland mountains or hills) and flow toward the low points (coast) ... so rivers do not cut across an island or continent.

5. If the ships are just decorative, then they should be larger ... they look too close to the symbol scale of the drawing (more like the location of a shipwreck, which probably shouldn't be drawn with sails).


On the positive side, I like the shape of your land masses and the drawing is well composed - you have a good sense of scale and layout, which is hard to teach.
While I am not a fan of grunge textures (I prefer cleaner drawings), you seem to have used them well - it looks like an old dirty cloth map.

[Hai-Etlik]

atpollard covered most of what I'd say, particularly the poor contrast, texture, and rivers. I'll add that you seem to have some issues with symbol scale. With "drawn" symbols like this, scaling them differently to get the size you want messes up the look. Some of your symbols have much thicker lines and less detail than some of the others. You also get different resampling artifacts which makes those artifacts more noticeable. The scaled up hill symbols north of the bay in the west for instance look noticeably blurry. You also have inconsistent shading of hills and mountains; sometimes the light seems to come from the east, sometimes from the west.

[arsheesh]

I agree with the above comments. Nevertheless, I think it is a fine start to one's mapping career. Good job.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh