The Land of Pollywog - Advice for a new cartographer

[WiseGirl]

Hello everyone! I’ve tried my hand at digital mapmaking for the first time and this is how it turned out! I went with a pretty simplistic, almost cartoonish design to start with, nothing too serious. Just looking for any advice or tips form you more experienced folks out there! Specifically looking for tips for mountains, forests, and anything to help the large empty spaces look less, well, empty! Thanks in advance!


A4DAE81D-B334-4D0E-AE77-88B24CD04A52.jpeg

[Tiluchi]

This is excellent for a first digital map! I'm not exactly an experienced mapmaker so I don't have much to add, but just a few minor things:

• I quite like the text you've used (the place names are excellent as well), with the exception that the A's without the crossbar make it a bit hard to read- perhaps because I've been spending too much time reading linguistics texts and it just looks like an open-back unrounded vowel to me.
• The river delta in the south looks a bit odd, I think because the river itself is quite thin, so the delta at the moment looks more like an archipelago (if it's actually supposed to be an archipelago then disregard this comment!). I might recommend starting with some criss-crossing rivers before making the spaces between the islands thicker.
• Your forests and mountains looks excellent in my opinion! Forests in particular are difficult to do well, so I'm impressed. If I had a minor quibble it might be that the spaces between the tree trunks in your forest are rather wide, and make it look quite "open". Perhaps I might recommend making the trunks thicker or adding more trunks.
• With regards to filling the empty spaces, perhaps some cities or other settlements would be good? I'd love to see what clever names you come up with! You could add roads or political borders between them after that if there still appear to be empty spaces. Alternatively if this isn't supposed to be a well-settled territory, some hilly areas or random rock formations in the empty spaces look nice.

Overall this is great, and I look forward to seeing where you go with it!

[DrWho42]

hey! your map looks great. i agree with maybe settlements and roads would help fill in the empty spaces. otherwise, hills and flora might be good! maybe throw in a critter depending on the wildlife.

[PaperGriffin]

Great looking map!

Filling blank space is always hard. Personally I usually use hills or smaller forests/clumps of trees to break up the space. That being said, open space isn't always a bad thing, and something as simple as a colour or texture changes can turn an empty space into grasslands, tundra, desert, etc.

[XCali]

This is a really great start! You have all the momentum here.

I would note one thing though, that cliff being so big at the one end, it feels odd how flat the coastline going on above it seems. Maybe add a little area where the cliff continue, but much smaller closer to where that North Western river comes out. It might just give the effect of the cliff shrinking that side. (Just a suggestion)

Hmm, I'm with PaperGriffin on the open space, on one hand it is nice to fill in some of it. But, then you also want to keep some in one way or another as plains or such.
Anyway, if you want to fill in some stuff, here is a grass brush I made and used for my Sambria map. You are welcome to use it, it is very simple.

Grass_Free_v1.png

I look forward to seeing you progress. You have a head-start in my view.

[WiseGirl]

This is a really great start! You have all the momentum here.

I would note one thing though, that cliff being so big at the one end, it feels odd how flat the coastline going on above it seems. Maybe add a little area where the cliff continue, but much smaller closer to where that North Western river comes out. It might just give the effect of the cliff shrinking that side. (Just a suggestion)

Hmm, I'm with PaperGriffin on the open space, on one hand it is nice to fill in some of it. But, then you also want to keep some in one way or another as plains or such.
Anyway, if you want to fill in some stuff, here is a grass brush I made and used for my Sambria map. You are welcome to use it, it is very simple.

Grass_Free_v1.png

I look forward to seeing you progress. You have a head-start in my view.

That’s some great advice I’ll definitely try to incorporate and work on! And thanks so much for the grass examples! 😁