Kingdom of Dolwind - First Time Map

[Zaianya]

Dolwind.jpg

This is my first complete map, after about a week of studying the tutorials and techniques here. This is also my first real post--hello!

EDIT: With help, I have tracked down the brushes again--they are from RPGMapmaker and can be found here.
Coastal wave brushes (also not my work) can be found here.
The compass rose (also RPGMapmaker I believe) can be found here.
The city, town, and village icons can be found here.

The design is mine, the forests are hand drawn. The rivers were done using the technique for tapered rivers found here.

Hopefully many more maps would follow; if you like this one, please feel free to use it. And thank you again to the community for all the tutorials, tools, and wonderful tips! Constructive criticism is appreciated.

[Chick]

A very nice job for a first map post! I'll look forward to seeing how you develop it

[Zaianya]

Thanks!

Two things I'd change: I've only just discovered the Tree Thing app, which would have made the forest creation a lot less time-consuming (and eye-straining). I'm also not terribly happy with the text--I tried to give it a subtle back-glow to help it pop off the page (the technique is described here), but for some reason I was having a lot of trouble with it, and ended up just selecting the text, enlarging the selection, and creating a separate layer with blurred "glow" beneath the text.

[Freodin]

A good start to mapping. Nice general layout, with only a little hint of the "heck, I have a piece of paper to fill!" syndrome. Nice clean lines and an almost consistent style.

A few major and minor things that you might want to consider:

1. Major point: when tapering rivers, consider that rivers usually start out small and grow wider when they approach their endpoint. Thus you should switch around the tapering of the north-eastern river, as well as the tapering of the river running from the central lake to the western coast. (And before the river police arrives: rivers also only very very rarely split and end in two different seas. Deltas are something else than rivers splitting in the middle of a plain. )

2. Major point: when using brushes, be careful to avoid overlapping. On your map, the most obvious point here is the third-from-the-top line of mountains. There are different methods for avoiding this problem, either by erasing the offending parts, or by using "solid" brushes... (which you might to have to make / adapt on your own )

3. Minor problem: consistency in style. The mountain brushes use a very heavy kind of shadows. Your handdrawn forests (well done, btw!) have no shadows at all, nor do the settlement icons. Adding some shading might help.

4. Minor problem: labels. Not necessary, but might add some level of interest to the map. Add at least some names for the settlements.

[Zaianya]

1. The river problem is easy enough (well, not a headache anyway) to fix--thanks for pointing that out!

2. The mountain overlap--yeah, that's a bit sloppy. I'll have to erase that bit.

3. Not sure where / what kind of shading I ought to add to the forest. I'm not terribly artistic--would some ground-shadow lines on the western borders of each forest do the trick? (I'm not sure I could shade all the individual trees!)

I worry about cluttering up the map, hence the reason there are no roads nor labels. Is there some what to avoid that problem?

EDIT: Here is the new version incorporating the laws of the River Police

Dolwind.jpg

[Chick]

...I worry about cluttering up the map, hence the reason there are no roads nor labels. Is there some what to avoid that problem?

Think about the purpose of your map. Someone will be using it to find out where things are, where they want to travel, or etc.

You can make a stylized map, which shows where things are in a very readable, simple manner that is functional. For this, you can use simple icons to show mountains and forests and rivers and towns. You don't need shadows, you don't need a lot of artistic mountains and trees, you just need the user to know what you mean to depict.

You can make a realistic map, which shows things as they would look if you were flying over them. For this, you need more detailed artistic depiction of mountains, forests, etc. You need shadows and tapering rivers. You need town icons that look like buildings.

BOTH need labels. Usually you want roads and other features that are naturally needed by a user for both styles.

So first decide which map style you want (stylistic or realistic) and that will help you a lot in deciding what to show and what to avoid.

But definitely add labels.

[Freodin]

...would some ground-shadow lines on the western borders of each forest do the trick?

That's what I would start to do. You might try to do some very basic shading for each tree (eeek!), but... nah, too much work. Looks fine as it is. Though... try it for a small patch.

I worry about cluttering up the map, hence the reason there are no roads nor labels. Is there some what to avoid that problem?

It all depends on what you think your map should show. If you think it is important for the reader of the map to identify certain features... include labels. If you just want to show a basic overview... leave them off.

If cluttering is what you worry about... best keep it simple. No fancy fonts, no weird angels or curves.

The best way to find out is just to try it. The advantage of digital cartography: if you don't like it, just go back to the bare version.

[Zaianya]

BOTH need labels. Usually you want roads and other features that are naturally needed by a user for both styles.

So first decide which map style you want (stylistic or realistic) and that will help you a lot in deciding what to show and what to avoid.

But definitely add labels.

I gotcha. I'm thinking for the purposes of this map, all the user will need are town names and very simple roads. Now I just need to figure out how to differentiate the roads from the rivers...

[Chick]

I gotcha. I'm thinking for the purposes of this map, all the user will need are town names and very simple roads. Now I just need to figure out how to differentiate the roads from the rivers...

Make rivers solid and roads dotted.

You can make dotted roads easily in photoshop by setting the "Spacing" parameter on your brush.

[Zaianya]

Here's the corrected version, after taking into account all the excellent feedback (thanks to everybody!)

Dolwind.jpg

As much as I wanted to, I ultimately felt the compass rose cluttered the map. Through sheer willpower I managed to not put it in anyway (it's so very pretty).

EDIT: Altered yet again because dotted lines for roads was a brilliant idea.