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Thread: My 1st World Map - Advice and Critique welcome

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  1. #1

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    What level of realism are you aiming for? Without knowing what you're aiming for, I can't really give feedback that will tell you what you might want to hear, and I don't want to discourage you. It is, after all, your world, so you do have a lot of artistic license.

    That being said, quite a few of the landmasses look very similar to Earth, particularly on the eastern side of Skardhyr (I can spot Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and Japan). Qashkavand and Tyraethos are very circular-looking.

    The plate motions look reasonable, but a lot of the coastlines look very fragmented and irregular, and don't appear to fit together as you would expect. The shapes of coastlines are very dependent on the geological and climactic history, so you won't get island arcs forming on the leading edge subduction zones nor will you get fjords in temperate or tropical climates.

    Have you worked out a tectonic history of the world, if you are planning to do so? Worldbuilding Pasta has a great tutorial on how to develop this, with a supplementary guide on how to create this with GPlates. Artifexian over-simplifies a lot of details, and his tutorials can be quite inaccurate. If you're worldbuilding as part of another project (e.g. a story), then they're good enough to get a somewhat plausible world, but if you are worldbuilding for the sake of it and want the most realistic world you can create, then there's a whole world of research papers and applications and articles to explore.

    If you want a much more realistic world, I would suggest:
    • An Andean-type mountain range along the south-west coast of Qashqavand
    • More plate boundaries (and micro-plates) to explain the hooked peninsula in the south of Qashqavand
    • Lindhaenes looks out-of-place: it doesn't appear to have split off any neighbouring continents, and the huge number of islands can't easily be explained. Are they the peaks of a submerged landmass? A magical cataclysm that destroyed the continent? Same goes for Tyraethos.
    • The southern continent looks just like Antarctica, with a few chunks taken out. Again, it doesn't appear to fit with any neighbouring continents.
    • Fjordhaerne may have broken off from Skardhyr, but where is it going? The current scientific consensus is that slab pull from subduction zones is what causes plates to move, but less is known about what actually causes subduction zones to form in the first place. I'd replace the transverse boundaries at Qiol with a subduction zone that is pulling Fjordhaene towards it, and a back-arc basin to the north because Qashqavand is moving away from Fjordhaerne whilst also pulling the latter towards it.
    • The island arc along the south eastern boundary of Qashqavand could be enlarged, as it is a trailing edge subduction zone
    • It may be helpful to attempt to figure out why Skardhyr looks the way it does, particularly the large inland sea in the south. I'd have another plate boundary along that somewhere, either closing the sea (like the Mediterranean) or opening it (like the Tethys Sea in Pangaea).


    Again, I'm not trying to be overly critical, so if hyper-realism is not your goal, you can ignore me. I don't want to pour cold water all over your project.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by zoqaeski View Post
    What level of realism are you aiming for? Without knowing what you're aiming for, I can't really give feedback that will tell you what you might want to hear, and I don't want to discourage you. It is, after all, your world, so you do have a lot of artistic license.

    That being said, quite a few of the landmasses look very similar to Earth, particularly on the eastern side of Skardhyr (I can spot Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and Japan). Qashkavand and Tyraethos are very circular-looking.

    The plate motions look reasonable, but a lot of the coastlines look very fragmented and irregular, and don't appear to fit together as you would expect. The shapes of coastlines are very dependent on the geological and climactic history, so you won't get island arcs forming on the leading edge subduction zones nor will you get fjords in temperate or tropical climates.

    Have you worked out a tectonic history of the world, if you are planning to do so? Worldbuilding Pasta has a great tutorial on how to develop this, with a supplementary guide on how to create this with GPlates. Artifexian over-simplifies a lot of details, and his tutorials can be quite inaccurate. If you're worldbuilding as part of another project (e.g. a story), then they're good enough to get a somewhat plausible world, but if you are worldbuilding for the sake of it and want the most realistic world you can create, then there's a whole world of research papers and applications and articles to explore.

    If you want a much more realistic world, I would suggest:
    • An Andean-type mountain range along the south-west coast of Qashqavand
    • More plate boundaries (and micro-plates) to explain the hooked peninsula in the south of Qashqavand
    • Lindhaenes looks out-of-place: it doesn't appear to have split off any neighbouring continents, and the huge number of islands can't easily be explained. Are they the peaks of a submerged landmass? A magical cataclysm that destroyed the continent? Same goes for Tyraethos.
    • The southern continent looks just like Antarctica, with a few chunks taken out. Again, it doesn't appear to fit with any neighbouring continents.
    • Fjordhaerne may have broken off from Skardhyr, but where is it going? The current scientific consensus is that slab pull from subduction zones is what causes plates to move, but less is known about what actually causes subduction zones to form in the first place. I'd replace the transverse boundaries at Qiol with a subduction zone that is pulling Fjordhaene towards it, and a back-arc basin to the north because Qashqavand is moving away from Fjordhaerne whilst also pulling the latter towards it.
    • The island arc along the south eastern boundary of Qashqavand could be enlarged, as it is a trailing edge subduction zone
    • It may be helpful to attempt to figure out why Skardhyr looks the way it does, particularly the large inland sea in the south. I'd have another plate boundary along that somewhere, either closing the sea (like the Mediterranean) or opening it (like the Tethys Sea in Pangaea).


    Again, I'm not trying to be overly critical, so if hyper-realism is not your goal, you can ignore me. I don't want to pour cold water all over your project.
    Hi zoqaeski, many thanks for your feedback and certainly having gone over your points I can now see a few glaring errors. The long and short of it was the project originates from 2 maps I did following the Saderan tutorial, these were Tyraethos and Lindhaenes. I since then seen Vorropahaiah's maps and was looking for how to go about such a project and that's
    when I came across the Artifexian videos. So I tried initially with Illustrator but gave up due to a bug and used Photoshop. I wanted to include by 2 previous works so placed them near to the equator in GPlates so to avoid too much distortion and added in some other continents. Needless to say it's gone a bit pear shaped.

    I do like your ideas and I shall work on it a bit more.

    • The main purpose of the project is to put locations and a storyline to some fantasy art I have planned, plus I have an interest in maps, especially atlas style maps and tectonics.
    • The seal level is quite high on Xeon, for example the south eastern parts of Qashqavand and the large inland sea on the south west are flooded river basins, the same goes for the appearance of Tyraethos, Lindhaenes and the southern parts of Skardhyr.
    • The reason for the transverse fault between Qiol and Qashqavand is that I wanted a large escarpment which I believe can be caused by such a fault. North of the fault the land is lower than south of it.
    • Fjordhaerne did indeed break away from Skardhyr and Qashqavand from Tyraethos which all broke northward from Zyythyr, as did Lindhaenes, but in my infinite wisdom I amended the coast of Zyythyr so much this is no longer recognisable.


    Many thanks again for your feedback it has made me see a few things differently now.
    Last edited by Stìophan; 08-11-2021 at 03:11 PM.

  3. #3
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    Hi All, here's my latest update. Added some new plates and amended the coastline of Zyythyr (the southern continent). Can anyone advise if anything looks weird/wrong? Thanks again!

    Xeon - Tectonic Plates-v1.5_small.png

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stìophan View Post
    Hi All, here's my latest update. Added some new plates and amended the coastline of Zyythyr (the southern continent). Can anyone advise if anything looks weird/wrong? Thanks again!

    Xeon - Tectonic Plates-v1.5_small.png
    Hey, I'll be willing to do the ocean currents for this great map here! In fact, I'm doing it now!

  5. #5
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    That's awesome Woody, many thanks. I'm glad you like my map, although it has some issues with the tectonics as pointed out by Harrg and Zoqaeski and I went on to revise it and came up with my 2nd version here https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=50457. Not sure which version you think is best?

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