Ataname - first step in a better direction

[TallaFerroXIV]

Okay, first of, the new bulletin image thingy is driving me insane.
With that out of the way I would like to say hello to you all again for bestowing your gaze upon this thread.
I put here a map I currently have for my fantasy world.


It has problems. Most stem from the fact I am a monkey with PS or any digital illutratadoodle. My focus for most of the time on this project has been linguistic.

But I need the map. I need to make this thing. I seek you help and critiques. I want to get hights going, some colour. Borders? Political map!? What is this?! It must be a doing.


Cut softly, but deep.



~Talla

[Diamond]

First of all, have some rep for jumping right in with a map!

I am not usually a big fan of starting with rivers before mountains, as I've found it gives you odd, un-natural seeming ranges, but you seem to have a good eye with layout; you'll most likely get some decent looking mountains out of this. What style are you going for here? A height map? Icons? Physical/atlas style?

[Viking]

I really like what you're doing here. Not only do I love the map itself but I love that you spent most of your time concerning yourself with linguistic development You have some really nice landmasses!

Anyways, yes so regarding your issues with photoshop and how to do this. You will want to be using different layers and folders for everything so you can keep layers separated and clean. I'm not sure what you know already but learning to use folders and layers is pretty critical. I usually use the following general folder structure. Each folder has sub folders and will contain relevent layers with actual data:
1. Overlay: This folder contains folders focused on things such as the border, the compass, any cartouches(legends and keys), any grids you may want to add, etc.
2. Political data: This folder will have all your political information. I tend to have folders dedicated to city icons, city names, (because you will get a ton of text labels it may make sense to have a folder for each region), political borders, political region names.
3. Geographical Names: This will have folders containing the names for oceans and bodies of water, regional names, mountains.
4. Geology: This will have folders containing your actual landmasss and water.

There are a lot of techniques and tutorials out there. I totally agree with Diamond that it first makes sense to figure out your landmasses and general elevation before bringing rivers into the equation but like he says, your rivers don't look too bad at all. It's a shame the map is a bit small though so they are hard to see. I would say be cautious with your lakes though. Most lakes drain to the ocean through rivers and if not they tend to become super salinated.

Ack there is so much to write and I have so little time as I need to go! Look around the forum for the tutorials.

[Azélor]

But I need the map. I need to make this thing. I seek you help and critiques. I want to get hights going, some colour. Borders? Political map!? What is this?! It must be a doing.

You seems to do a good jobwhat do you want to know? I would say, relief/ land color or texture should be the next step.