First swing at a map. Any suggestions/critiques are more than welcome (WIP)

[remus]

Hi All. This is my first go at a map. It is in the very early stages and I wanted to know if it has gone crazy geographically. I have set up the tectonics and biomes but I'm not sure that they are correct/possible.

Any critiques or suggestions are welcome!

Outlines
NOwNA.jpg

Tectonics
yqnKW.jpg

Biomes
dR9kK.jpg

[ManOfSteel]

Well, it's kind of hard to determine the accuracy of your biomes without knowing the latitudes of your map. I think there are some discrepancies though, assuming that the equator runs through the center of your map and the arctic zones are at the extreme top and bottom. Also, not knowing the terrain makes it difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether the biomes are correct.
One thing I see is that you seem to have some of your taiga zone on the western continent at the same latitude as the tropical rainforest on the eastern continent. Also, Mediterranean biomes tend to be on the west coasts of continents at certain latitudes and you have one on the east coast in an equatorial region.

[bartmoss]

Hey Remus, welcome to the guild!

Can't really comment on the biomes/climate zones - I'm kinda oclorblind so the key is giving me some trouble, haha. But one comment on your plate tectonics: Since your planet is a sphere, if that's the entire planetary map, then I am not sure the artic/antarctic plates and plate boundaries will work like this. My recommendation is, and I can't offer a tutorial (I really should write one), to overlay the map on google earth and see how the plate boundaries and movement arrows match up on a sphere.

Kudos though for taking a scientific approach and actually considering continental plates; to my shame, I have to admit that I am oftentimes too lazy to do it

[ManOfSteel]

I always think of the arctic and antarctic tectonic plates as more symbolic as it is almost impossible to distort them perfectly.

But if you want to be totally accurate, there are ways to correct those polar regions. I use Photoshop. I'm not sure if Gimp has the same function, but here's what you do.
1) Take your equirectangular map and use Photoshop's polar coordinates filter to make your rectangular map into circular ones with the poles at the center.
2) Use whatever tools you're comfortable with to blend textures, move lines, and adjust things at the poles so that they don't have that pinched centerpoint.
3) Now run the filter again, but in reverse, from polar back to equirectangular.
4) Your new equirectangular map now shows the areas at the poles properly stretched so that when you apply the map as a texture onto a sphere in a 3D program, everything will look correct. The continents will narrow as they get closer to the poles, but at least things won't converge in a point.