First try, Atlas style.

[imbrattabit]

Hi,
this is my first map.
It's made with photoshop and I drawn it by following a tutorial on youtube (a very good one indeed).
It took me 5 hours in total (more or less).

As inspiring subject I choosed a simple B/N map taken from Beast&barbarians RPG.

BB-sat.jpg

[Ghostman]

It's a nice looking map and all, but some of the rivers are flowing in an unnatural manner. There's one that begins from the sea and then flows back into that same sea -- that would require the water to run uphill. And there's also two rivers that flow out of the same lake, an extremely rare case in nature. As a rule, any inland body of water should have only a single outlet.

The style of the map also looks much closer to what I'd call satellite style than atlas style.

[Chick]

There are a few problems with your rivers. The lake at bottom (with all the islands) has two outlets, that never happens. Lakes can have many inlets but exactly one outlet. Also the river that splits out into many channels, near the bottom, that only happens at low-lying deltas that have built up into a swamp, never in hills or mountainous terrain as yours looks to be. Rivers never split going downstream above that.

[imbrattabit]

thanks for the advices.
You both are right, I had problems in making the rivers because I forgot to add them in the correct moment so I had to draw them by hand once the main part of the map was already finished and flattened (I'm still a beginner).

The river that seems to begin from the sea and then flows back into that same sea is actually a narrow strait (the land on the left is an island) but I agree that it looks like a river. I didnt know how to make it different from a river, probably I should draw higher coasts.

I also agree that the map looks like a satellite style rather than an atlas one, the tutorial was called "Atlas Map Style Tutorial" so I fell in error, I should be thinking with my head

I didn't know bifurcation lakes are so uncommon (I made some researches and I found that there are less than 5 in the world), thanks again for the suggestion.

[Ghostman]

The river that seems to begin from the sea and then flows back into that same sea is actually a narrow strait (the land on the left is an island) but I agree that it looks like a river. I didnt know how to make it different from a river, probably I should draw higher coasts.

A natural strait, even a narrow one, is likely to have it's width vary quite a bit at different points along the way. The coastline on either side could also be made more rough and jagged looking.

[imbrattabit]

A natural strait, even a narrow one, is likely to have it's width vary quite a bit at different points along the way. The coastline on either side could also be made more rough and jagged looking.

thanks for the advice I'll remember that next time.