First Post, First Map :P

[Samurai_Sushi]

Hello all, I'm pretty new to the whole mapping thing. Here's my first colored map of Asthenum, a sci-fi/fantasy idea of mine for an RPG. This was done in Artrage with a mouse. I'm pretty much attempting to get into digital art as a whole and am working on other projects such as characters and landscapes. The main things I feel could have been improved: More water variation (coast), the mountains, and an easier transition from one region to the next, mainly the square of green on the right side.

For a size reference, the northern volcanic island would be about the size of Ireland. The north is ashlands and swamps. The center is mostly rainforest. The turqoise peninsula is a rainforest warped by alien colonists. The west is the Asthenum Divide and savanna. The south is grasslands, badlands, and desert. The body of water at the bottom right corner is a lake and border to Sinnoprowl, another fictional country.

[Ascension]

First off, pretty decent for a first go so kudos there. The colors are good and the layout is interesting. The rivers, however, are some of the craziest I've ever seen, skirting the coasts instead of just dumping out into the ocean, forking downstream, criss-crossing, etc. I think browsing through the Tutorials section here might help ya fix those up real nicely. The mountains need a bit of work but not too much and the Tut section again will help ya out there. Your mountain style seems to be most similar to Pasis so check out his tut...his tut is not for Artrage but since it's a raster program many of the techniques should transfer over. All in all I think you can definitely go somewhere with this so don't think I'm trying to discourage you in any way...quite the contrary. Take a gander at some of the mountain tuts and I'd be more than happy to help you out further with rivers of you get stuck...just ask and I'll copy your map and draw some in for ya and you can finalize them.

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

...and since you included a map in your very first post, have some rep *bonk*

Those are some pretty strange rivers, so I'll just echo Ascensions comments regarding them.

[Samurai_Sushi]

Thanks for the comments and critisism. The rivers were kinda rushed to be honest and I had no clue how to do them. I'm planning on getting photoshop/GIMP this weekend and taking a good long look through the various tutorials.

[Ascension]

Well if ya need anything, just shout. I'll give ya a hand.

[NeonKnight]

Welcome to the Guild!

[Redstar]

Welcome aboard! The mops are in the corner...

Seriously though, great first map - good color, interesting design. The layout seems good to me too - deserts, mountains, jungles all seem appropriate. I'm not much of a river policeman so I can't comment on their plausibility.

You said you made this in Artrage. I'm not familiar with the program, but I did notice around the mountains (and lakes and desert) there is a pretty strong noise filter of some kind. You might want to consider easing that with an overlay of some kind or a light gauze blur

I think the larger bodies of water could use some colors to note the depth, but that might just be my own proclivity.

Great first post overall!