Reply With QuoteI would move the labels of your Islands to above or below each island. That way the labels will be easier to read and move detail will come through on the islands themselves.
Qen'ha - the setting for my fantasy novel
Hi all!
I've been working on a fantasy novel series for a number of years and so I decided to try and create a map for the series. My main continent is conveniently separated into regions held by different races so I sketched their respective regions by hand, then scanned and imported these sketches into GIMP and used them as the basis for building a complete map of the continent. I had a look at a number of different mapping software options but I opted for GIMP so I could really tailor the look and feel and also so I could develop my graphic design skills. I haven't done any work on this map in about 2 years but I'm nearing completion of the first draft of my novel and a number of things have changed as I've progressed so I'll need to update the map accordingly. In addition, I want it to be the best possible map it could be so, here I am, braced for all the harsh truths!
Here's the map so far:
PrimaryMap-overview-coloured.jpg
I posted this in the Introductions section last week. I've had two bits of feedback already and I've perused some of the various threads and tutorials here so I have a list of issues I already know about:
- River south of Lake Tar shouldn't fork like it does
- My deltas in the west and east are far too big
- Lots of my lines are messy
- No Man's Land needs to be mapped to ensure surrounding areas are cartographically consistent
- Icons for Mountains and Forests are pretty crappy
- Need better indications of terrain height
- Too many rivers exiting the lake on the western Watoshi island just above Hitai
- Continental coastline is far too regular and there are no islands/bits of broken coastline
- Rivers and lakes in general need reworking for consistency - I'll be making use of Redrobes awesome tutorial for that!
- Placement of names/labels
The idea around No Man's Land is that a small group of supernatural beings rebelled against the races of the land hundreds of years ago and took control of that area of the continent using magical means. I had initially envisioned that they would use their powers to throw up mountains/cliffs/escarpments to permanently block access to the area. Given how severely this kind of thing would necessarily alter the surrounding landscape I'm now not sure I want to go down that route. I could probably live with them putting some kind of magical barrier instead, but I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on that part. The northwestern area of No Man's Land was home to the Elves capital city so there is definitely a lot of good mapping to be done there.
Another item to bear in mind is that there is a much larger continent far to the south west of this one where a massive cataclysmic event occurred only a century ago. The idea is that a volcanic eruption a la the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was caused by 'scientific' interference. I haven't worked out the exact mechanics of that but I do want to be sure that the effects of that event on other areas of the world are consistent.
Lastly, the south-eastern island of Los Entreia is being completely removed so please disregard that!
Thanks in advance to everyone for your feedback!
Last edited by AsDuskFalls; 10-24-2017 at 04:33 AM. Reason: additional known issues
I would move the labels of your Islands to above or below each island. That way the labels will be easier to read and move detail will come through on the islands themselves.
Hi Edward, thanks for pointing that out! The "Watoshi", "Seelanders" etc... labels will be removed as part of my next pass on the map as some of those details have changed and I primarily had them there for my own reference. Additionally, I didn't have any proper names for a number of different regions or islands, but now I do so I'll be adding those and placing them as correctly as possible with the help of the resources available here
Hey, good first attempt. When will you be able to post an updated version of the map?
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Hey OldRed, thanks for the feedback! I'm hoping to get some work done on it this weekend so I aim to share an update on it then!
Hi all, I spent some time earlier today working on this map. It was the first time in a while I had gone back to it and it was a lot of fun! I didn't have enough time to begin any significant structural overhauls, though I will be looking at that down the road. I did, however, work on overall readability of the place names and fix up some of the obvious waterways issues. I feel like it needs a lot more indication of terrain height but I'm not 100% sure the best way to go about that given how much of everything else I already have. Additionally some suggestions on the way I'm displaying mountain ranges and forests would be awesome. Any other feedback you can give would be greatly appreciated!
Map-HetEntreia-29-10-2017.jpg
Here's my list of known issues with this version:
- some of my lines are messy
- No Man's Land needs to be mapped to ensure surrounding areas are cartographically consistent
- Icons for Mountains and Forests are pretty crappy
- Need better indications of terrain height
- Once terrain heights are properly established, need to do a review of general topography to ensure consitency
- Rivers and lakes in general need reworking for consistency once terrain height is properly established
- Continental coastline is far too regular and there are no islands/bits of broken coastline
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