Returning visitor, a map in progress, and a brick wall...

[MiToVo]

Hello everyone,

So, as my subject suggests.. I'm a returning user here. I used to be on here some time back, but can not for the life of me remember what name or email address I was using. Go figure.

Anyway! Hello again, and long time no see

So, I've been working the world map for a game project, and I have the "base" of it in a place that I'm really happy with. The wall I'm hitting now, though, is getting the land details in there (mountains, etc) and making it look good.

I've tried hand-drawing stuff, but even with a Wacom tablet, my hand is just too shaky, and I can't make good, smooth looking anything.

So, I'm using pre-made icons instead. I'm currently looking to use the 'Sketchy Brushes' from 'StarRaven' on DeviantArt. Not sure if that will be the final set I use, but it's at least the style I'm going for.

Here's the "base map", pretty much completed (minus stuff like a compass, a distance ruler, etc.. which will come later). I'm super happy with how it's coming out. So, I don't want to screw it up with lousy map icon usage.

I'm going for a more "iconic" look, where it's kind of a "less is more" approach. So, I don't want to have long, high definition strings of mountains, for example. Rather, I'd like to have enough to give an impression of "a mountain range", but make it more iconic and implied, than "literal". I'm sure you know what I mean.

I've spent about 2 hours laying down icons at different sizes and arrangements, and I just can't get something that looks good. It either looks too sparse, or too crowded. Too large, and it kinda ruins the sense of scale. Too small, and the icons lose their identity and it all starts looking like a jumble of angular dots.

I'm also up in the air of whether I want to apply color to it, and how... The options I'm juggling are:

1. Tinted Land
2. Tinted Icons
3. No additional color/tint

The colors would assist in indicating the type of region, etc. The size of the world itself would be about 20k x 20k, that's to the edges of the map.

So... Here's the map... The original is 2000x2000x300dpi, but I've shrunk it down to keep the file size under control. Any thoughts or feedback on the map is appreciated, and of course, some ideas of how to approach laying down the map icons is especially appreciated.

Thank you!

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