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It looks like it has a bit of Isometric view to it.. I like it!
My First completed map.
Hello everyone, I'm relatively new here but I've made a few posts in the forums. I just finished my first map to one continent of the world I'm building for a new gaming system I'm designing. That was a mouthful, anyways this took roughly 2 hours to accomplish. For the past few days I've been practicing on a few different designs and this is the final outcome. I'm looking forward to see what everyone has to say, open criticism is nice, anything I can learn to make better maps is a great help.
Avra.png
It looks like it has a bit of Isometric view to it.. I like it!
The only real problem I see with it is the labels - not only is it a bit hard to 'focus' on them (black against a relatively dark background), but some of the smaller ones seem to have a drop-shadow that is really distracting. What about a soft glow around them to help them 'pop' a bit more?
Other than that, it looks great. I like it. And have some rep for posting your first map.
Ah, thank you for pointing that out to me, I hadn't realized it looked that bad haha. Here is the new updated version, hopefully the text is a little easier to read.
Avra.png
I find all the text easy to read ... however, what is that big north-south stripe of brown? I can't tell what it is ...
That line is to represent national boundaries. For some reason it's more prevalent for the red and not the blue even though they have the exact same settings.
Hmmm ... if you're going to use that line to denote national boundaries, you're going to have to mark it separately, since it's not a conventional way of delineating borders. To my eye it looks like a different kind of vegetation or terrain. You've marked the rest of the "human" geography (names and places) in black - black text, black dots of various sizes for settlements. You should use something visually similar (i.e. black or sharp and obviously unnatural) to define borders. The classical _ . _ . _ pattern is one option. You can then shade the sides of the border or whatnot.
Honestly, I never would have guessed that's a border.
Yeah, I didn't realize that was a border either; kind of looks like a funky magical desert or something...
lol, me too. I thought it was a cliff line.
Love the map generally though, although the mountains are a little blobby (technical term!) for my tastes.
Good start. The labels in the second iteration are clearer but having an outline of white or light grey around them would make them stand out more. The national boundary effect can also be improved by simply reducing the fade and the overall transparency level I reckon. Although, as Lukc points out, these things are often portrayed by broken lines, I've seen plenty where the line is a fairly broad washed* line.
* thinned down ink
Tigon Ologdring
Worldbuilder, Shieldsmith and Bannerman of Midnight
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