World of Exodus - WiP commission map

[mearrin69]

A little progress on this. Started laying down some textures to suggest terrain and climate (which, I'll admit, doesn't make a lot of sense to me in this world...but, hey).
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[mearrin69]

More texturing. Think I'm nearly done with that process but would like to see what you guys think. Added back the border just to see how it looks with this style. This, again, is the style of the product itself (see capture from the setting PDF) so, even if he doesn't keep this border, it'll be encased in trade dress that looks similar and I need to make sure it doesn't clash too much (I think).

So. I want to add some rivers. I haven't been given an exact scale on this but have been told that it represents about "half of the world" which makes it a pretty big chunk of land. I'm thinking that means only major rivers. Any of you River Police (or aspiring deputies) have some suggestions for where to put these? FYI, the lands to the southwest are arid desert and just north of that is "frigid hills" according to my notes. The lands at the top are basically deep jungle and forest...good place for a Nile-like river maybe? If it's not apparent, Ablis is not a nice place with pretty rivers.

Here's another question: how's the water color? Look good? Should I shift it? Think I should tone down the shelf a bit?

Any other color suggestions? All of the textures are on layers with "Pattern Overlay" style so, once I flatten them, I can do color correction as desired. I think maybe Cordel's desert needs to be a bit brighter.

Thanks for the feedback/help!
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[ravells]

Sorry for coming into this a little late. I really do like the large amount of lakes in your map...for some reason we tend not to really feature lakes in general.

[mearrin69]

NP. Thanks. Glad you like that. I was sort of wondering if maybe I had too many (and what I would do about it if so). It's pretty "porous".
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[rdanhenry]

The areas of Earth with lake plentitude like that have had glaciers sliding over the landscape, shaping it. When it comes to rivers, the lakes will need them as outlets, or they'll become salt lakes/inland seas. Also, if that's half the world, it's a lot more land-heavy than Earth. If it is a globe, rather than a flat world, I'm curious as to how close to the poles it cuts off and if the projection used has been considered (the visual width of the primary landmass is essentially constant top-to-bottom, but if that's nearly half a globe projected onto a flat surface, the reality is likely *very* different.

[mearrin69]

I am fairly sure that projection has not been considered. I'm taking the "about half of the world" guidance as a very rough concept. Climate guidance I've reflected in the map (jungle at the top, frigid hills in the center of the western portion of the landmass, desert at the bottom) *might* be possible in a physically based world but you'd definitely have to have quite a lot of map both above and below the portion pictured - and that would mean a lot more map on the west and east sides in order to bring this up to hemisphere scale. I'm not going to get terribly bothered about it as I'm thinking this is just a place for the setting's authors to put some interesting cultures and history and geophysics be damned. That's cool. I can roll with that.
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[Diamond]

Hmm... I think the continental shelves look fine, at least at this display size. I'm assuming the final product is much bigger, so maybe my opinion would change seeing them in greater detail, but right now I think they look great. I always dislike doing shelves because they end up looking too smooth and regular, but yours look much more authentic.

As for rivers, well, rdan nailed it pretty well. The closest area I can think of that looks like that would be central Canada - festooned with lakes, with a crazy amount of rivers linking them all.

[mearrin69]

Getting there. Made some mountain changes at the client's request. I changed the text to something more "classy" but I'm not sure whether that's okay or not. I might end up going back to "Gang of Three", the titling font used in the product. I like this better I think. Left the red borders too. Brash but they'll be next to the the map in the product so they need to be able to work together.
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[mearrin69]

Yeah, but, I like this better. I wonder if the client will - if not I've got the old "skin" too. Also, forgot to mention that the rivers are just placeholders for now. Be putting some more work into them soon (fading out the headwaters and minor rivers, beefing up the mouths and meatier sections).
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