Elysion - Generic JRPG world

[Naeddyr]

Hi Naeddyr, so far it's looking pretty good, except that the dark outer-shadowsurrounding the land-forms looks out of place; almost as if the land-forms were hovering above the ocean. Rather than making an outer-shadow, have you considered an outer-glow? Perhaps of a lighter hue of blue? That might help give the impression of shallow water along the coast.

Yeah, of course I did the outer glow first (what there's now is an inverted layer from that), I'm just trying something new.

Eh, maybe I'll do a proper ocean-bottom topology.

Also, I might do a floating continent and for that I could use the drop shadow effect...

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/014/...jpg?1327886705

Cyan shallow waters, at least in the tropics...

I need to find more true color images of ocean.

EDIT:

Though if I make a more stylised map style (I've got one idea) I might go with the black borders. I'll do a quick mockup...



Just using edge-detected lines to accentuate the separate colours of the the landscape, makes it seem more painted...

EDIT:



Something like this.

[Naeddyr]

Just modifying and iterating.

EDIT:

Yes, those volcano craters are hundreds of miles wide... Honestly, that seems a tad excessive. :p

[Naeddyr]

EDIT: Added some clouds for effect :TIDE

I think I'm getting the hang of this.

A slight outline, some continental shelves, and a "tropical glow" in some places on the coast.

The flying continent has a shadow outline, of course. :p

Gigantic, World Swallowing Volcano Continent That Really Has No Reason To Be Able To Coexist With Life On This Small World is now a realistic dark brown, and the crater lakes look a bit cooler in the middle.

About the scale of the world: I don't know if I've said it before, but this is a small, small world. The exact size? Depends on how much I need... JRPG worlds have weird scales. But, the world is small (but also varied!), and the population density is tiny. Maybe this whole shebang is comparable in size to Europe. With a much smaller population. Gravity and rotational periods and years are still 1 Earth Unit.

I'm thinking of an underwater kingdom of some sort, for water dragons, but don't know how much of that should be shown on the map. It'll get a place indicator.

I think the next bit is to add fluff to the map

1) Places and place names. As you'd expect, sparse towns and some random places of interest to the backstory.
2) Some sort of minigame treasure hunt indicator, like Chocobo Hot and Cold in FFIX, or secret draw points in VIII.
3) Symbols and fluff.

And here, have an elemental diagram.