Norrmannia-Aresia

[thamupp]

UPDATE: I've decided to start over completely, go here to see the new project.

Hello, since this is my first post perhaps a short introduction is in place. My real name is Martin and I live in Sweden and I've been browsing the site for a few weeks. I found CG after googling for tips on map creation while working on something simple. Anyways, I found this place and all of it's amazing work and tutorials and I've been working on a map on and of ever since.

The map I'm working on is just your average historical fantasy map. The story behind it is that it's created in the region of Aresia to describe the rest of the known world.

Here's the original sketch I made for the map.
scetch.jpg

And here is the current map(s) (Most names are randomly generated and might change)
norrmanniaaresianamesno.jpgnorrmanniaaresianamesno.jpg

The map is heavily based on the techniques from Ascension's tutorials.

[thamupp]

Sorry to double post but I had some free time today and experimented with creating a CoA.

Here's the style I'm going for in the more central kingdoms (more civilized) . Any critique on this or on the map would be much appreciated.

coa test all.png
Both the eagle and the lion are free vectors I found online, so nothing i created my self.

[Eilathen]

Hi and welcome to the Guild!

Wow, i quite like the left map of your current maps. Very nice! Will you add more information, like forests and mountains?
Oh and tell us about the world itself!

Have some Rep.!

[thamupp]

Hi and welcome to the Guild!

Wow, i quite like the left map of your current maps. Very nice! Will you add more information, like forests and mountains?
Oh and tell us about the world itself!

Have some Rep.!

Thank you.

The right map is more of a reference thing for my self so that I can tell different regions apart. So that's why those borders are quite sloppy.

Adding more information is definitely something I want to do. I'm actually experimenting with some different ways of drawing mountains but I haven't managed to find a way to make it look good so I left them out for now. If anyone has any good idea's of a style that would fit the style of the map that would be amazing.


The world doesn't have that much story behind it and I'm kind of just making it up as I go along but the main things that I have established are:

Aresia (Smolandia, Elandia, Omlandia, Suderlandia, Visinga) is based on western europe with the most southern parts being mediterranean and northern part german.
Norrmannia (Norrlandia, Lapplandia, Jemtia, Torlandia, Gothia) is a name that Aresians use to describe the men of the north. Culturally Norrmanns are more barbaric, inspired by vikings.

Vestmannia and Sudermannia are not yet completely finished but my thought so far is that Sudermannia doesn't have kingdoms or rulers, instead there are major trade cities by the ocean. In Vestmannia I'm thinking about adding some kingdoms (or similar) but I'm unsure.

As you can see, even I don't know much about the world yet.

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild thamupp! Very nice for a first pass at mapping! I also like the original sketch as well, something very charming about it.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[doc_cthulhu]

I used the same tutorial for my own map and would like to recommend you to add an extra step to "rings" layer.

Once you have expanded the selected area use select>modify>smooth (the amount depends on the size of the ring and the dimension of your map). This makes the rings more round around the corners thus looking more natural than line drawn with hard edges.

Great work altogether anyway!

[- Max -]

Nice job so far.

[thamupp]

Thank you all for the nice words.

I used the same tutorial for my own map and would like to recommend you to add an extra step to "rings" layer.

Once you have expanded the selected area use select>modify>smooth (the amount depends on the size of the ring and the dimension of your map). This makes the rings more round around the corners thus looking more natural than line drawn with hard edges.

Great work altogether anyway!

I have actually tested a bit with that and I think I decided that i personally prefers the current look of the rings. But maybe I'll try it again.

Anyways, been playing around a bit with mountains but still haven't found something i love. Current progress:
mountaintest.jpg mountaintest2.jpg

[Schwarzkreuz]

Are you going to finish this?

[thamupp]

Are you going to finish this?

I think I'll continue working on this once I finish the scandinavian map. I would want to start over when it comes to certain things on this map though. Even though I've only been mapping for 2-3 months I really feel like I've been getting better, and there's certain things on this map I think I could really improve before adding new things to it.

Here's a picture of my first go at mapping about 3 months ago.
NyaSverigePlanetStorre14.png