Faladriand - a large work in progress.

[tatteredglyph]

My first post about a map! I'm excited to start my journey here, as I see the community offers actual feedback (something I struggle with on other platforms - not many people offer feedback and critique). So, without rambling too much, let's get into my map.

This world is called "Faladriand." The name was actually a randomly generated name from a website (I kinda suck at making up names on my own), and I loved the name - so I kept it. So, this isn't so much a "high fantasy" world so much as it's just heavily fantasy. I have Gods/Goddesses, as well as several different fantasy species. (Eh, species / races if you want to get technical? Most of them are they're own species, while having sub-categories for races within themselves.) I'm currently working on a more accurate descriptor for my world, but for now the umbrella "fantasy" will have to work.

Now onto the actual map!

faladriand - wip (1).jpg
(Created in Photoshop CS5, all textures and patterns are presets.)

This map was primarily a "test" piece, but I do like the style in which I did it in. I feel I know my main problems: spatial awareness and rivers. To be completely honest, I don't know what to do with rivers, especially on large landmasses, so I kinda just planed them randomly. Please don't hesitate to call out my poorly placed rivers. I looked at a few tutorials on the forum about river placement and it kinda went over my head. So I gave it my best try. I did at least try to think of proper placement, but I'm sure I still got something wrong.

I'm not sure what happened with that thin landmass on the left. It's so thin, it's probably the size of Rhode Island in length (at least, that's how it seems). I had no concept of size when I was making that, and everything is too close together. I did like my initial landmasses, however.

faladriand - wip (2).jpg
(Created in Photoshop CS5, all textures and patterns are presets.)

So, this was the second-ish attempt to fix what I knew was wrong. I didn't change the landmasses, but I did give the land "breathing room" on the map. However, I'm still unsure of how large any of this actually is. It's something I'm having trouble with - sizing. That said, aside from the breathing room I didn't change much else. I'm still playing around with this style and making it lag less in Photoshop. (The file size is huge and slows down my computer, so I have to work on this in pieces.)

This particular version may under go a lot of revisions, as I'm going to be placing cities, towns, etc. I don't know exactly how I'm going to be placing roads and the like down. I also plan on putting in ship routes in the water to indicate trade via the land landmasses.

faladriand - wip (3).jpg
(Created in Photoshop CS5; brush sets are as follows:
StarRaven's Cartography Brushes.
StarRaven's Calligraphic Brushes.
Eragon's Cartography Brushes.)

This version is probably my worst. I was playing around with styles because I found a tutorial that had this sort of style. I tried to play with it, but I find it ugly when I do it. My issue with this is there's too much blank area on the map. Whereas my previous map had no issue due to the textures I applied. The desert on the middle landmass is poorly places and the rivers are poorly done. I desert seems "barren" and I haven't a clue how to fill in all the blank space.


All-in-all this is an interesting process. I might "combine" both maps and use the first map's style for future projects. It just looks better in my opinion. That said, I'm probably going to continue moving forward with map #2 and tweak things.

Any and all critique is welcome! And, I realize the rivers are seriously poorly done. Any critique on how to correct them is welcome (I know there's the "river police", go easy on me, though. I did at least try my best.) I'm looking forward to feedback and to implement the changes. Thank you for reading this long-winded post!

***** LATEST WORK IN PROGRESS ****
faladriand - wip (4b7).jpg

[Mouse]

I like the second map best. The third is a bit bright, even for me

So I will talk about the second map.

I really like the textures and colours you have chosen in this map, and the methods you have employed to illustrate mountains and rivers. Scale is really the biggest problem, since it is a bit early in the day to go on and on about projections and polar distortions and things like that.

This is a world map, so if you think of a world map of Earth and get that fixed in your mind's eye, you will see at once that the 'island' you think of as Rhode Island is in fact several thousands of miles long, and quite a few hundred miles wide. Then you may see that the mountains you have created here are each about the size of a large country, or even a small continent.

The mountains need to be very much smaller than they are, even if they are intended only in a symbolic fashion to represent mountain chains.

And that's a hint for moving forward. Mountains usually occur in not really very straight lines, or gently curving arcs, so when you add all your very much smaller mountains that will be worth bearing in mind.

I've only been mapping for just over a year, so I know how confusing all this can seem. For that reason I will leave you with just that as a comment for now.

Hope it helps

[tatteredglyph]

I apologize for the brightness! Looking back I could have made it a bit darker.

Thank you for the feedback. It's much appreciated. So, everything's too big, and here I was thinking everything was still too small! That's actually really helpful, to keep in mind an image of Earth and to go from there. I tried using the ruler tool to help me with proportions - but that clearly didn't work out. That said, your feedback definitely helped!

I did try to keep the mountains from being too straight, but I can definitely work on making them seem more curvaceous. I think I need to also define my mountains a bit more, I have a few ideas in mind, so I will definitely keep in mind what you said.

Your feedback will prove to be very helpful!

[Mouse]

You will probably receive a lot of different suggestions as you progress. Mine is merely the first, and what I say isn't necessarily always the right way to do a thing, so I may stand corrected.

What I'm trying to say is - don't ever go 'all out' to do things exactly the way someone else suggests (including me) if you don't agree with them, because all the things we collectively say are, after all, only suggestions

If you find it really does help in the long run (ie after the real experts have had their say), then I am glad to have been of some small assistance

[- JO -]

Hello ! For a first try, you did a very good map !
M'y favorite it the second one, and I join Mouse about the size : actually, regarding your map, it's more a regional map than a World map (regarding Size of mountains, rivers and forest)
There are some basic things to remember for the river, it's quite simple : rivers are mostly dependent of the relief : the water is only running if the ground is not flat. So, look at your Moutains and draw the rivers according to them.
Also, most rivers are joining together and not dividing, as you draw some.
Third : One or two of your rivers are just splitting the land in two, that 's strange. If it 's the sea, it should be wider, but it can it be a river : river don't start from the sea, they arrive in in the sea, but they start in the mountains, the marshes or some jungle forests.
There's a specialist of rivers in the guild and he may give you better advices.
Anyway, keep up the good work and, most of all, take pleasure in creating this map !

[PaGaN]

Hey Tatteredglyph.

As I said over in my post, just popping over here to give a big ol' thumbs up. I too like the second map but, given that I'm still new here I'll leave the guidance to the way more learned than me.

BUT, I will share with you a habit and a trick i have formed to help with naming. It's really simple but whenever you have a few minutes spare (on the bus, lunch break, TV, reading, etc...whatever) just scour your surroundings for whatever words are around and in your mind just split them up and recombine them, take the end of one word and put in in the middle of another. Whatever you like. Some results will be lame but some will be keepers. The habit I have formed is to keep a note book (analog or digital) to note these all down in.

Just on this page alone I have come up with: Toria, Therling, Tyfer, Mentinda, Justult etc...

Anywho, hope this helps and happy mapping!

PaGaN

[Diamond]

Just to emphasize and agree with what JO said regarding rivers: they always seek the easy way out. On that first map in particular, there are a couple of long, think islands/continents with a central river running through much of their length. Unless there are some steep mountains on either side, it's more likely that at some point in its journey the river would find a cleft or low place to exit to the sea. That's not to say what you've got here couldn't happen, it's just unlikely.

[tatteredglyph]

First let me say thank you for the feedback everyone!

@Mouse
That's very true. However, upon looking more, and regarding JO's comment, I can see how things are too large. And, I understand - I should stand by my work. But, at this point, I want to take as much feedback as I can, and when I return to my map later tonight, I'll see which feedback needs to be applied. I mainly wanted to address you because what you said is very helpful.

@JO
Thank you very much! I'm very proud of it. Taking into consideration of what you and Mouse have both said, I can see how this isn't a world map. I need to work on my sizing, and probably should have had a basic idea of size relation before starting. As for what you said about the rivers, that makes sense. I'll probably look over what has been posted about rivers on the forum to fine tune what you said and hopefully will find a good balance.

@Diamond
Regarding the rivers, yeah. I think I went a bit overboard with how long the rivers are. But, that's a great comment "they always seek the easy way out." That's actually going to be quite helpful.


So, at this point, I think my main goal is to continue with the second map. However, I will be editing it to look more proportional in a "worldly" sense. Then I will plan on tackling a regional map. My understanding is a world map would show less detail and possibly a smaller size, while a regional map would show more detail and greater size?

Another question, however I will understand if this is hard to answer: how can I possibly figure out ratio and scale? I'm trying to work with the ruler tool in Photoshop, but I'm not able to accurately figure out how many miles anything could possibly be. I know it can be all up to me, but I'm struggling to find a good balance of lengths.

[Mouse]

Distances.

Hmmm. First ask yourself if Faladriand is about the same size as the Earth, or bigger/smaller than the Earth (many fantasy worlds are smaller, but some are actually larger.

Once you have decided on that, consider that the circumference of the Earth is about 24,901 miles, and decide what the circumference of Faladriand is based on that.

Once you have the circumference set in mind, you have the width of your map, so whatever you are measuring in PS as the length of your map is equivalent to that distance, which in turn is the basis of the scale of your map. So if it turns out that you have 200 miles per cm of width, then your scale (at the equator at least) is 200miles/cm.

The scale will vary as you move away from the equator, because if you think about it the pole is a point, but is represented by the entire width at the top and bottom of your map. I get a bit lost myself once we get to this point, so I'm hoping that someone else will help...

EDIT: The distance from pole to pole will be half the circumference, and if your map is equirectangular (twice as wide as it is tall), the scale from top to bottom will be the same as the scale around the equator, and it will be the same no matter where you draw an imaginary vertical line on your map. You just have to remember that horizontal distances are pretty difficult to judge on an equirectangular map the further you get from the equator.

[tatteredglyph]

@PaGaN
Thanks for popping over! I appreciate it.

For naming - I have plenty of time, so that technique will actually come in handy. It's so simple, yet here I am thinking "why didn't I think of that?" So thank you for the tip. I have plenty more names, so I will definitely be using that.

@Mouse
You just made that sound ridiculously easy! However, that helps so much. I will be tweaking things about, I don't know about doing the polar distortion, unless someone can pipe in and follow-up with what you were saying.

Hopefully I'm understanding what you're saying right. So, I'll definitely have an update tomorrow!