Continent

[Lingon]

Looks excellent so far! I love the cartouche

[Raptori]

That is one excellent link Raptori. I have a clear understanding of how they work on different projections now. Thanks for sharing it.

I took your advice and warped the continent on the stereographic projection so now the main map should have a more realistic mercatorial (is that a word) feel to it and the rhumb lines would make sense to any would be navigator.

NEXT: i think i may need to scale the land mass down so it wont be overlapping the border. I also want to spice up the border a bit more and add a compass rose.

Any suggestions for improvement?

You're welcome! I spent a good few hours reading through that site the other day when I found it, amazing amount of detail.

The mini-map looks really good to me now, and as a whole it looks great. Can't wait to see more

[Caenwyr]

This is coming along nicely! I love your colours, and I think these are one of the most inspired landmasses I've seen for a while. Am curious how this is going to evolve. I follow Diamond when he says you'll have to be careful not to overload this map: it's so rich in texture and colour detail already, it would be a shame to drown it in less "wowwy" labeling etc afterwards!

[Slylok]

I'd leave that overlap in - it's done all the time in cartography, and frankly I think it looks cool.

At this point I'd be careful not to overload the map. If you put a compass rose in, I'd keep it fairly small and maybe try and stick it in that bottom left corner to balance out the stuff on the right.

I think that, if you are going to keep the boundary overlap, you may want to have it overlap in more than one spot. That way, it looks intentional and stylistic

Top notch advice gents! I expected nothing less from this community. Thank you all for your input thus far.

I decided to expand the continent so it would overlap the border evenly. Also moved the cartouche up to the corner overlapping the border. Added some more flavor art around the hemispheric view. Does it look to busy there Gave it a tattered edge for a bit more character. Trying to make it look like its laying on top of other maps...

[Slylok]

Added some adjustment layers to brighten it up a bit.

Changed some elements around. Does the bottom right look too bare now? Is this a better arrangement or did this throw off the composition .

[Diamond]

Hrmmmm... I think I like the previous version better, although this new one leaves you some room for a key if you're planning on adding more detail, like cities, keeps, etc.

[Neyjour]

It's really difficult to choose between the two!

I love how you did the globe in the first one, with the books and embellishments cradling it. That just looks so attractive and interesting. But it does make the map look a little bottom-heavy/crowded.

The second one looks much more balanced, but I don't like the cartouche as much as the the one in the first. It looks kind of squashed, and again, a bit crowded at the top now that it's much closer to the coastline.

Positioning/arrangement aside, this is really, really beautiful work! Wonderful landmass shape, and I love how it (and the cartouche) overlap the border a little. I also love all the details and embellishments, especially the creatures (tentacles, sea monster, ship, dragon). Also love the double parchment and curled corners! The font is very nice as well, and I especially like the lower opacity, curved labels for the ocean. And the colours are just beautiful! I really like that monochromatic look, with just a hint of colour. So... yeah, I pretty much love everything about this. LOL!! The only thing I'd suggest is to play with the positioning of the cartouche and globe some more.

[Slylok]

OK I think I'm going to go with this. Since I don't intend to depict terrain features or cities I decided to put the globe back down in the corner.

I shrunk the projection down and made only it overlap the border to keep the theme going and changed the decoration around it to fit. I like it alot better this way. Thank you all for your input. It was very helpful .

I think I may call this one done at this point. I may actually move the Drakeland islands down a bit to even out the composition there. Anyone have any other suggestions?

@Neyjour: your comments are very well received. I'm glad you like it!

[jkat718]

Sly, as much as I still love arilla4, I do think that this lastest map is the most usable. Although, I'm still interested in seeing whether making the globe stand out more (maybe darkened and embossed? I don't know exactly) wouldn't help make it look separate, and therefore less like clutter and more like a feature. Would you mind if I made a version like that? I'll probably fail and give up anyhow, so there's little chance anyone else would see it.

P.S. *BONK*

[Slylok]

Although, I'm still interested in seeing whether making the globe stand out more (maybe darkened and embossed? I don't know exactly) wouldn't help make it look separate, and therefore less like clutter and more like a feature. Would you mind if I made a version like that?

Nah you don't have to do that, but feel free to play around with it all you want for personal use Or did you mean use the style in one of your own maps? If so, by all means use it. I doubt i'm the first to do it.

The main focus for the player is going to be the realms in the continent anyway. All the other stuff is just for decoration and atmosphere. this is also the map for the 16:9 aspect ratio. i'm going to have to modify it for screens that use 4:3 so it doesnt look distorted. In which case that whole feature probably wont fit.

As i look back and forth between arillia4 and arillia6 i do think that i got a little too far away from the color scheme i was going for. ill probably play with that a little more and tone it back down closer to where it was in arillia4.

Thanks for the input! You're helping me stay on track