New to map making, photoshop and basically everything - my first map attempt

[mats]

If it closes into a complete circle like that it's not conic, it's polar azimuthal. Since the features at the equator don't show any east-west stretching, it would have to be polar stereographic in particular. This really is not a projection that makes sense for a map of a narrow band of habitable land at the equator, it's a projection suited to a map of the pole. A world with a narrow equatorial habitable band would be ideal for cylindrical projections with standard parallels near the equator. For instance it would be one of the few places that Plate Carree would really be a good choice for a finished map. A conic projection would be a good choice for larger scale maps centred north or south of the equator, but it would be a very steep cone with the standard parallels near the equator and hence a very slight curvature to the parallels.

This is a great explanation/introduction of map projections. Thanks! I guess I'm going for polar stereographic

Truth to be told I was aware of of the distortion when I started (not that I gave it much thought but I understand the basics) but I wanted to draw it this way for artistic purposes - so I could also show the moon that's tidally locked to it and have that ring shape of the world. As I said, it's a testing mash of everything for me to learn how to draw nice maps

I did actually assume that people of this world would use cylindrical projection focusing only on equatorial habitable area and I'd draw more detailed maps this way...

[mats]

Following Hai-Etlik's advice I focused on one small area of my map... I'm quite inspired with Caenwyr's thread so I picked few of his tricks (imitation is sincerest form of flattery) I also tried to combine some color into the whole process and the result is... well, still far from what I aim for but slightly better than before

M3.jpg

I've learned that I probably need to use higher resolution because auto-fill didn't want to work with me on this one (that's why the color goes over the lines in places). I'm also not happy with small hills and rivers (although I think rivers will automatically look better with higher resolution, no idea what to do with hills). For towns, roads, labels and other features I guess I should turn to Illustrator... I'm not sure, I'll have to read few more tutorials...

Same as before - this is me learning both photoshop and cartography - it's a phase before work-in-progress phase Any suggestions, comments, critique and feedback is more than welcome. Thanks!