Very nice, the black and red is very Tolkienesque.
I thought a frilly border was more in order, given the subject material. I might go more that direction with the illustrations later.
### Latest WIP ###
The-Old-Mage-Finds-New-Love-2.jpg
Very nice, the black and red is very Tolkienesque.
I really like your border as it is... it's lovely, but yet simple enough so as not to distract from the map itself. My favorite phrase comes to mind... understated elegance!
I know you have been doing this a lot longer than I have...but there is one aspect I think could be a little different - your lakes and rivers. According to your legend... the unbroken lines are rivers. Which means to me that the smooth polygons are lakes. But your rivers look like major roads to me.... they are so straight. I think they would look more like rivers if they bended and winded a bit. By the same token... I think your lakes would benefit from a little texture. It has to be really hard to do a map in black and white... because you don't have color to give your areas meaning... so it can be hard to distinguish one feature from another. It's one of the reasons why I haven't attempted to do this yet! lol
I do recognize the style... it's Mike Schley for cc3+. I know he has a symbol in the ocean catalogue that might help with your lakes, the waves symbol. If it renders in black and white, it would give your lakes the texture they need to be recognized as a body of water. Of course, it's just my opinion... I'm no expert by any stretch.
Other than that... I think this map is turning out really great!!!
Like a thief in the night
she comes with no form
yet tranquility proceeds
the accursed storm...
check out my new Deviant Art page!
https://www.deviantart.com/ladiestorm
The simple border works nicely and the way you've blended some of the elements together looks beautiful. Particularly with the mountains.
A good choice of illustrations too, though I'm not a fan of your red font, I must admit. If it was balanced with some red elsewhere in the map it might work better I think.
Nice map, I guess you could improve it by adding ripples in the lake so that they pop out more and in some places, trees stand out of the lakes (might be what you wanted). There's a minor issue for me : you got two shades of white that do not blend, it's a detail but I sometimes tend to nitpick.