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Te city is looking pretty good, imo. Concerning the regional map, I guess the darker areas are the mountains, but it's pretty hard to tell at first look (I first thought it might be forests). I would add lines or more details to make it more clear.
Amaryth - Critique / Advice
WIP map(s) for a World I'm creating. Critique and advice wanted on how to improve it.
I would like to keep the art style consistent throughout and I want to say that I'm going for a "flat" look. Hopefully you can understand what I mean by looking at them.
This region map has gone through quite a lot of variations and I think I'm at a place now where I'm happy with the overall look. Would love more experience eyes to have a look and suggest ways to improve upon it whilst keeping true to the style I'm going for.
Below are 2 maps, the region map for the main setting, as well as a city map for the main focus point throughout the initial campaign.
XTqMCSJ.jpg
EHOt8wv.jpg
Te city is looking pretty good, imo. Concerning the regional map, I guess the darker areas are the mountains, but it's pretty hard to tell at first look (I first thought it might be forests). I would add lines or more details to make it more clear.
Had some free time over the weekend and today so I made some adjustments to the Amaryth map.
qVw1Oz3.jpg
I think swapping the ink colour from black has made things easier in terms of style. It still feels like the type of map I was going for, but without the hard black lines I managed to do more conventional mountains that don't look like crap.
Unsure whether having shading on the forests is the right way to go, but it's on a separate layer so I can always just remove them on a whim. Might need some finishing touches here and there but overall I'm quite happy with how it's progressed. If it's worth it to anyone I can always upload the progress of this from my initial design.
As always thoughts, advice and critique are greatly appreciated.
Edit:
One thing I should note, is that this is designed to be viewed on a 10 inch screen for my players so any imperfections won't be as noticeable.
It's looking nice, definitely better with those improvements. I would suggest more linework on the forests.
Yeah I think so too. Think the "flair" I added helped sell it.
When you say linework do you mean more of what's there already. Or like stuff on the underside where you would see trunks?
Mountains look good. I only knew that the forests were forests because I read the post. The design of them is ambiguous and might be interpreted as land bound water bodies (you can figure out that is not the case by closer inspection, but you don't want viewers having to figure out things like that), desrert, political sectors, or any other number of things. To me, the line work that is done parallel to the boundary makes it look like water. To know they are woods at first glance there are a couple things you could do:
1) color? (doesn't seem like you want color though, I usually don't do color either.
2) add a couple full trees dispersed around within the woods.
3) with the mountains now, you have a perspective map rather than 'flat', you could put trunks along the south sides of the borders to show that they are trees.
Hope that helps to give you some ideas. Some examples of 2 and 3 can be seen in my one and only album as well as many other guilder's work too. Keep it up. Looking really good for a first map!
Cheers,
Cuin
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on instagram at cuin_the_cartographer
Made some quick adjustments. Not perfect but hopefully this is what people had in mind.
61mHjwK.jpg
Since you're heading for a quite flat look, I was thinking of more "tree-top like" drawings into the forests, mainly.
I think Ilanthar is correct. Try erasing the line are within the woods and starting from scratch, just to see what you come up with. I suggest trying several styles and picking the one you like best (heck, no lines might even work). Also, will any of the woods be labeled? If one or more get labeled as a forrest that helps the reader know what they are looking at. Another option is a key, or legend.
Cheers,
Cuin
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on instagram at cuin_the_cartographer
I'm agreeing about the forests, it's still hard to distinguish them from the seas/lakes at first glance. It's tempting for us to think of forests as dark canopies with distinct boundaries (like Mirkwood) but this really only happens in fantasy. In reality most forests are more open, and have a fuzzy natural boundary unless it bounds with human habitation (ie humans cutting down trees). Rivers will also happily flow through forest biomes, there's no need for that gap between forest and river.
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