Lorem - Continent Map WIP

[KLowery]

Work in progress map of a world my best friend and I are building.

Trying different styles and toying around with things, and will probably do this map in different styles in the future. For now just fishing for suggestions.

The rivers are rough in's at this point, I'll be going back in to make them less linear, but any critiques on general placement would be much appreciated!

Lorem.jpg

[Murcu]

My only complaint is about the rivers. They look like pieces of string laid across the map. I have no suggestions or ideas how to fix it tough.

But the colors are really nice and the layout looks good!

[rdanhenry]

You've got a lot of inland seas/salt lakes there. If you don't have an out-flowing river, minerals will accumulate in a lake just as in the ocean, so if you want those lakes to be fresh water, they need to connect to the sea.

[mearrin69]

I reckon it looks pretty sharp to me - very nice forests! I get that the rivers are stand-ins so looking forward to seeing how the finals look. Agree with rdanhenry that you'll want some of those flowing out to the ocean if you can. It's good stuff, though. Have some rep for getting the ball rolling!
M

Edit: Oh, on placement, I'm sure an official representative of the River Police will be by shortly! River placement is beyond my pay grade.

[jtougas]

I really like the mountains. They look like giant spines of some huge creature. Overall very nice. repped.

[KLowery]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! Reworked the rivers to the more final versions and took rdanhenry's advice on the outflows. Hopefully this will give the River Police more to work with should they stop by.

Lorem2.jpg

EDIT: Hmm, after looking over everything again I'm getting the feeling I have too many rivers, a lot of them paralleling each other. Should I take some of these paralleling rivers and have them merge together?

[Ascension]

I would. If this were real terrain there would probably be rivers where you have put them but they might be smaller and, thus, not visible from this altitude. The only other thing that I might change is to take the bevel off of the rivers...looks like tubes instead of rivers. All in all, though, very nice.

[mearrin69]

Maybe try "down" in the bevel settings (if you're not already). I would, in general make them much more subtle. As Ascension said, you might not see them from this altitude...I don't see a scale but judging by the lat/long markers you've got showing this is a pretty big piece of land. The shapes of the rivers are quite pleasing but maybe try making the headwaters just a single pixel thick and taper that up as you get toward the coast. I like to "bury" my rivers under the vegetation layer a bit...either by actually putting that layer under the other, or by using a grungy type brush to erase out bits when the river's small.
M

[KLowery]

Fiddled with the beveling to see if I could make it more subtle but ended up taking it off completely. Removed a few of the rivers, mostly around the outer edges of the continent.

Also threw in a tentative placeholder scale, you guys think it seems reasonable?

Lorem3.jpg

Thanks for the help!

[mearrin69]

I think those look much better personally, even though they're not visible when zoomed out. Maybe the color could go a little more toward a lighter brown, less saturation? You're going with a satellite style so it might be worth taking a scroll around Google Earth/Google Maps...you don't see many (any?) blue rivers.

On geography and such perhaps somebody else can school you more but a couple of things regarding "rain shadow" stand out to me. I'd expect to see more lush vegetation along one side of the mountain ranges. Also not sure how the desert surrounding the mountain works out in terms of realism. It may be okay (someone else would know better than me) but my eye wants to see green on one side or the other. My only real experience with this is the time I spent living on Oahu. The west side of the island is darned near a desert while the east side is nearly rainforest. The area between the two ranges is sort of middle of the road.

No comment really on scale but it looks believable to me. In general I like the map a lot.
M