The North Coast of the Arden Empire

[ChickPea]

I've been so busy for the past couple of months that I've not had a lot of time for mapmaking. I've worked on this off and on when I had a minute, but mostly just messing about without any clear direction.

At first it was going to be almost monochrome, then on a whim I added some colour. I thought I'd do a political map, but started to draw in some mountains... then erased most of them. I've changed the shape of landmasses at least three times, I'm sure. Every time I open the file I seem to do something that's at odds with whatever I did previously, so if it looks a big hodge-podge... well you know why!

The cartouche came from a free vector site, and the ship (which, frankly, I think is the best bit!) came from an old map on the Scottish National Libraries maps web site. The text in the cartouche is plagiarised from a (different) old map from the same site, though obviously tweaked to match my place names. Oh, and the place names themselves came from my favourite Elizabethan name generator site. The trees belong to the gorgeous set Neyjour made available here.

I'm fairly far along, though I've still to add more trees and stuff, especially to the bottom area, as it's a bit bare at the moment. However, I'm at the stage now where I'm sick of the sight of it and want to be done so I can move onto something else. Hopefully by the end of the week...!

arden1.jpg

[Diamond]

The Empress Sorcha? Someone's been watching Willow...

Lovely map, ChickPea. My only suggestion is that the colors seem too washed out, but that's likely just a personal preference.

[Ilanthar]

Nice map! I would probably add more contrast for some elements like the frame and the title box, though.