World Map (very rough draft) have some questions on Drawing it

[jbgibson]

<aside> Thanks, RobA! I shall try to dispense valid advice, and steer streamdiggers rightly :-) </aside>

Yeah, that helps the river situation some, rentauri. I can sympathize - it's just plain hard to depict a gradual slope! Really, though, a realistic river network does a good job of showing what's higher and what's lower, all by itself. Like RobA said, if geography won't support a particular feature, you can label it magic and just drive on. There's a principle in fantastic fiction, though, of being stingy with extranormal items. One's universe is more engaging if the departures from our own are limited. Present, just limited. For instance, if you want a bunch of harsh history, some of those watercourses could be canals, dug by generations of prisoners slaving away in the blazing sun and driving rain. Or the product of useful earth-benders (my kids have been rerunning Avatar / Last Airbender episodes).

That said, no matter what the reason for some remaining over-connectedness, you could indicate direction of flow by some placement of tributaries. Rivers don't start big, they build up from many smaller streams. Visual direction-of-flow hints come at the junctions - the join is usually at least a little less than 90 degrees, with the resulting angle "pointing" downstream. If you place some tributaries, you'll start to see where the water comes from, and realize that unless there's one heck of a spring at (say) Strohigm or Freetom, it would be hard for multiple major rivers to spread out from one point. More likely, all those mountains have creeks and streams starting, joining, and eventually merging to make the big rivers.

Do you have an app that will help you place text along a curve? Instead of 'claiming the territory' with great big labels, a more conventional approach would be to spread a territorial label out curving across its extent, maybe using a different font or all caps to distinguish from other features' labels. It doesn't even take a terribly large font - such a label will often have letters spaced 'unnaturally far apart' -- look at some old maps and see what looks best to you. Google "16th century map" or the like, and have a nice wander through the University of Texas' online map collection, or any of a dozen others. Search 'map collection' or the like on the Guild - there's been numerous threads with links to stellar examples.

Maybe the islands seem too blobby because they are so rounded. Try putting some sharp points and clefts in places, and see if that helps. If you erase to get channels, you run the risk of your smallest curve being the radius of the eraser brush you use - that looks unnatural. Try some of such erasing really zoomed in, and/or freehand youself a jaggy selection in place and erase all within that.

[rentauri]

That said, no matter what the reason for some remaining over-connectedness, you could indicate direction of flow by some placement of tributaries. Rivers don't start big, they build up from many smaller streams. Visual direction-of-flow hints come at the junctions - the join is usually at least a little less than 90 degrees, with the resulting angle "pointing" downstream.

That was what I am trying to do but the 'fade' out that shows the start of the river via tributaries is currently beyond me. I have tried multiple times to create them and I can't seem to get it right. This is why rivers that start at mountains (heck start off anywhere) always are a big as the river itself.

This is a problem I intend to fix, I just haven't had the time to search a tutorial and applying it to the map yet. I did try a script but I must be using it wrong because it always errors out. When I can I'm going to post the error in the that thread and see if I can get it resolved.

Do you have an app that will help you place text along a curve?

No currently this is all done in GIMP. This map is my first very digital map so I am tossing different things at it and seeing what sticks. I have a heck of a time getting the text to move at a 45-90 degree angle, curving it will be interesting.

Maybe the islands seem too blobby because they are so rounded. Try putting some sharp points and clefts in places, and see if that helps. If you erase to get channels, you run the risk of your smallest curve being the radius of the eraser brush you use - that looks unnatural. Try some of such erasing really zoomed in, and/or freehand youself a jaggy selection in place and erase all within that.

Yeah I decided to go with the 'steal from reality' approach in the Archipelago and that area. For the Three islands I am going to use the Philippines as the template (looks like what I am interested for that location) and the Mergui Archipelago for the Shattered Archipelago (it has that jagged look).

[Hai-Etlik]

That was what I am trying to do but the 'fade' out that shows the start of the river via tributaries is currently beyond me. I have tried multiple times to create them and I can't seem to get it right. This is why rivers that start at mountains (heck start off anywhere) always are a big as the river itself.

No currently this is all done in GIMP. This map is my first very digital map so I am tossing different things at it and seeing what sticks. I have a heck of a time getting the text to move at a 45-90 degree angle, curving it will be interesting.

You might want to look at Inkscape then. I use it for just about everything myself, but it's reasonably easy to load an image into it, place your text, turn of the background image, export it, and then load the result into The GIMP if you prefer to work that way. It's also good for doing tapered rivers via two of different methods: Pattern along Path and Tweak

My most recent map has examples of "tweaked" rivers and text on a path done in Inkscape if you want to get an idea of the output: http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...chmentid=39598

[RobA]

That was what I am trying to do but the 'fade' out that shows the start of the river via tributaries is currently beyond me. I have tried multiple times to create them and I can't seem to get it right. This is why rivers that start at mountains (heck start off anywhere) always are a big as the river itself.

This is a problem I intend to fix, I just haven't had the time to search a tutorial and applying it to the map yet. I did try a script but I must be using it wrong because it always errors out. When I can I'm going to post the error in the that thread and see if I can get it resolved.

No currently this is all done in GIMP. This map is my first very digital map so I am tossing different things at it and seeing what sticks. I have a heck of a time getting the text to move at a 45-90 degree angle, curving it will be interesting.

If you want to stick with gimp there is this tutorial:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...Rivers-in-GIMP

-Rob A>

[rentauri]

I changed the islands on the eastern side and the Shattered Archipelago. Instead of filling the crater like sea I threw a couple of bigger islands at it. When I re did it I did kept out the shading for the Mountains, Hills and Forests but quite honestly I will probably put them back because I like it better in, even if it looks muddy.

I haven't applied the background to the map (yet) and I have applied only some of the labels.

Map v2 plain.jpg

[Lalaithion]

i would even say that the background contributed to the messiness of the map. could you possibly find a lighter parchment as the background? i think there is a thread full of them in the map resources section.

[rentauri]

Here is the map with my colored background and nothing shaded for the mountains, hills and forests. I used a lighter color for the background and the Sea.

Map v2 shaded.jpg