Duinnin Map

[duinnin]

Greetings all! I am new to this website, but I have been exploring and experimenting with conworlding over my lifetime, though its been a few years!! In any case, I wanted to post up a map I put together recently, its just an outline really, for critique, suggestions for terrain, rivers and climate. I am undecided if this is a single continent or one massive one with the bigger two "islands" as smaller continents. Thanks!

maplarge.png

[Gidde]

Welcome to the Guild, and kudos (and rep) for a map in your very first post! For my part, I vote single continent.

[duinnin]

The original size of my map is 3840x2160 pixels, which I've uploaded now. Perhaps I am overwhelming myself. I am working on a conworld for fun really, so am also toying with conlangs as well, but think a map of the conworld would help focus me. Hopefully the full size map gives better view.

[Talon44]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a "conworld"? FWIW I vote single continent as well.

[urxed]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a "conworld"? FWIW I vote single continent as well.

"Constructed world" - a country, continent, a piece of land or a whole planet that does not really exist.

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I also vote single continent! I don't know how fun it is, but I'd love to see some harsh winter/snow and tundra. Maybe something in style with Russia/Mongolia.

[duinnin]

Just something I whipped up while playing around with the "cloud" filter in Photoshop.

freebie01.png

[duinnin]

Updated my map with some elevation and rivers after toying with the tutorial here. What do ya'll think?? I am unsure what to do with the terrain such as where forests, deserts, etc may be located. Trying to make a realistic map is a bit overwhelming, so much to know!

mapmtnrvr.png

[duinnin]

I have updated my map with elevation and rivers, and tilted it slightly for aesthetic reasons. I don't know what to do to make it more realistic, or where/what terrain (forests, deserts, swamps) or climate should be . Any ideas??

mapmtnrvr.png

[Gidde]

The elevations look great!

But, you seem to have several rivers doing very funky things, like starting in lowlands, ignoring a low route to the sea and instead going straight over the highest mountains around. You may want to check out the How to Get Your Rivers in the Right Place sticky in the tutorial section of the forums; it has some great explanations of watersheds and river behavior.

As far as climate and things go, for just a continent it's tough to tell (so I'd say to just put em where they look right). If you really want realism, you need to know where on the world the continent sits, so that you know what the wind patterns are like and such. For example (and this is really simplified, so it's not *quite* accurate), if it's straddling the equator, the winds will go east to west and you'll have rain forest to the east of mountains and drier country to the west of the mountains (most of the rain falls out of the air before it goes over the mountains). If it's in the temperate zones, the winds go generally west to east and you'll have the opposite effect with forests and deserts. And that's just one piece of the puzzle! Building a realistic climate is really, really complex. If you do a search of the forums for the word climate in thread titles, you'll find oodles of great discussions on the topic.

[duinnin]

I kept the coastal outline, but started over on the rest. Devised a new way to do the elevation that looks like a real map I hope. This will allow me to add rivers and additional water features much, much easier. Adding the sea elevation will be next. I have given it latitude and longitude coordinates, about the size of Europe and located where west Russia would be. I am unsure about the scaling though. Any suggestions, criticisms or other input??

physicalmap.png