Azraghael

[Sharpes]

Lovely map. Would love to know how you did the heraldry as I'd really like to be able to create my own.

[Tom]

Amazing work! i love the crests!

[GreatWhiteNorth]

Thanks for all the love everyone! I really appreciate all the suggestions and compliments. I'll address some of the comments:

1. Hills: I agree and personally think they're the weakest part of the map. I tried free-handing those (I'm working with a mouse, not a tablet), and they looked. Bad. Really bad. I'd like to work on improving my drawing in the future, but for now creating a brush seemed like the better route.

2. Forests: Lots of you said they could use more "pop." Any suggestions on how they could be improved?

3. As for the map body overlapping the frame, I think it's something that cartographers should think about doing more. The neatline's purpose is to be constraining, which is kind of a double-edged sword. It creates a window through which we view the world, but it also creates a false boundary. The world doesn't stop at the neatline, and the map overlapping that boundary reminds the map reader that there is more to the world than this window can show us. I think this philosophy holds up just as well in fantasy cartography, regardless of border style.

4. I was concerned that the shields would seem ill-fit with the rest of the maps aesthetic. I'm really pleased to hear so much praise for them!

[Diamond]

Just wanted to chime in with my praise as well. This is a pretty great map! As far as the frame overlap goes, I'm not against it per se, but I think it could've been done more convincingly. One thing I'm not a fan of is the harsh black 'ripple' lines around the coasts, and they look especially off-putting where they show past the frame. If you did away with those, and also perhaps did a black or dark blue outer glow around the areas that extend past the frame, it might pull the whole thing together better.

As for the forests, I'm with everyone else in that they're too subtle, too bland. Have you considered making a simple pine tree brush, very small, and stamping about five bajillion of them in some soft, subtle color? Very time consuming to be sure, but the final effect might be worth it...

edit: going back to the land extending past the frame thing - another thing that might help is to avoid the multiple islands etc. past the frame. That just looks messy. IMO.

[AzurePlanet]

Very nice map!
I like the overall shape of the main island, mountains and hills too. I dislike the way you represented the forests: they're too faint in my opinion.
Coats of arm are really well done.

[Sarithus]

Isn't your River splitting at Jahore in the South? Also, near Ialfield in the West you seem to have a river coming from nowhere. As someone that is always looking for more information on rivers I'd be interested to see what the source of that river is.

[GreatWhiteNorth]

Both regions are supposed to be pretty flat, low-lying coastal areas. The River in Jahore probably appears to split too early on the map, which is admittedly a problem, but essentially it is supposed to be approaching a wide delta, similar to the Mekong in Vietnam. As for the river near Ialfield, it is also supposed to be a slight valley collecting water from small surrounding hills, which at the time I didn't think important enough to depict on the map.