Thanks Pixie, that makes a lot of sense, I can't believe I didn't think about that. And it blew my mind to see what the origins of the Ebro is, amazing.
Reviving this post and also "coming back from the dead".
I spent maybe half a year in silence, mapping less and forcing myself to lurk only at cartographer's guild. This was 1) because I was burdening myself with too many tasks here at the guild to a point it wasn't being just stress free fun (my sincere apologies, Azelor, Groovey, Ascanius, and others, for my sudden demise) and 2) because real life commitments have this ability to reduce hobby time to nearly zero.
Yet, whining and personal ramblings aside...
I haven't stopped completely and over the last months this planet is still being "modelled". As a over-a-long-period-Work-In-Progress, I guess it's time for another peak at the current state. So, here is, inside the orange line is the area I have managed to complete. Outside it, you can see areas in different stages of completion.
currentstate_april2015.jpg
side note: the dragon/phoenix (just like the penguin) is not intencional
It's a really lovely map, I just urge you to be extremely careful with the distortion at the poles, it would be a shame to have such a high quality map be "damaged" (I don't really know what word to use) by such a simple issue
Glad to see you back !
Thank you, Azelor. Not "back" as in permament participant, however, I have way less free time than I did a year ago.
mbartelsm, I am aware that as I work the regions closer to the poles, I need to keep in mind the distortion.. it makes those areas daunting, and I'm avoiding them for the time being .
Your alive!!! Well it's good to hear from you again and that you've been working on your map in the spare time you managed to carve out. The map is looking very nice thus far. I really like your color palette for the height-map.
Thanks ascanius.
The color palette isn't mine. Credit is given further up in the thread. Unlike yourself (yes, I've been lurking your massive artistic endeavour), I lack drawing/coloring skills.
Yet (and always) having fun with this fictional planet... But I haven't done so much topography lately. Instead, I took some a side road, by attempting to figure out oceanic circulation for the planet (not just the surface, wind-driven, currents, but the whole lot) and also digging a little deeper into climate.
This map is a WIP, kept in the backburner for a while. However I had major breakthroughs today, both in figuring out climates and in applying an easy way to use color areas and redo them over and over as needed, so I wanted to share the present-day state of affairs for this climate stuff. To my eyes, it's quite alright.
(This post is specially dedicated to Azelor, the standing climate expert )WIP_AcurClimate_may.jpg
As it is a sketch more than a finished work, this map lacks latitude lines, legend for the climate codes, labels with regional markers like seas, rivers, capital cities, etc... I know that, it's just a WIP on climate.. For reference the equator is located close to the island that looks like a Y and the 30şN parallel close to the three tiny desert islands in the west coast.
I think your climates look ok even if I'm not sure the climate should be dry in summer in the east or if it would be winter dry more like in Asia. Because it reminds me of Tibet. More like Dwb, Dwc or even tundra if it's cold enough. And it could be the same thing for the plateau, it look pretty high to me. Also, I think the hot steppe is too close to the equator.
I also dame up with simplification of the climates. Unlike what the name might suggest, it is not a biome map. I might have to ''improve'' the colours. It doesn't make the distinction between oceanic Cfb/Cfc and continental Da/Db or between the f and w. Not sure if this is a problem or not.
biome 2000 copie.jpg
And lastly, I would recommend to use these maps as reference instead of the one found on wikipedia. It's made by scientists and it's more precise. http://koeppen-geiger.vu-wien.ac.at/shifts.htm