My 1st World Map - Advice and Critique welcome

[zoqaeski]

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.

[Stìophan]

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.

[Stìophan]

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

[Harrg]

Zoqaeski gave you very good advice. I decided to invade your world a little, tell me stop if I too brazenly entered the territory of creativity. I tried to roughly sketch what the coastlines might look like based on your tectonics. I ignored a lot of things and didn't test all of this on a sphere, so the final result should be different from the sketch. If you really want to do modeling of the world, and not free creativity, then it is better to start with a supercontinent.

First, collect all of your land in one supercontinent, and then tear it apart. Another point to pay attention to how tectonic boundaries affect the coastline. In the zone of active orogeny, mountain formation will take place, you most likely will not see bays there extending far into the continent. They can appear on the side of the passive zone, but not the active one. Most likely there will be a super ocean in your world, like the Pacific Ocean in the real world. Most likely he will be in the east, instead of Lindhaens.


The main thing is not to treat the coastline as some kind of fractal noise. The coastline has many formation rules. It's hard to understand right away. The sand model videos helped me a lot. Just mentally look at the process not from the side, but from above in a 2D plane and you will see how the main land masses are formed due to certain tectonic processes. Then complicate these models, add sedimentary rocks, currents, erosion, etc., and you will get good results.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L-6WIvVikI&t=6s

11.jpg

[Stìophan]

Many thanks Harrg, and I'm glad you invaded as you say. Certainly looks different for sure. I'm quite influenced by my own country, Scotland, and in particular the Western Highlands and I think that's where a lot of the jagged coastlines and islands came from. That plus the fact I started with Tyraethos and Lindhaenes which were generated from random patterns. I did a rough idea of a supercontinent (excluding Zyythyr, which sits at the bottom of Lindhaenes (blue), not sure if however this would split correctly into my current world.

Xeon - Tectonic Plates_Phase-I_small.png

[Harrg]

This is good way!
One of the things that touches the coastline, remember where you have active mountain building, subduction, or passivation on the outskirts.
Also, the movement of the plates affects the shape of the land. It can stretch or shrink. Remember that part of the land may disappear or appear due to tectonic activity. Therefore, it is not necessary to display all islands and island arcs within a supercontinent that have appeared relatively recently in geological time.
I understand you. The fjords and rugged coastline are always mesmerizing, but there are not many places on earth where such a relief can appear. This is most often associated with glaciers and rising ocean levels. Therefore, most likely fjords will come across starting from latitudes 45-50. (Here the values ​​can vary greatly from the settings of your world)




Gplates can help u construct correct models of ur world. It`s can be looks hard, but after some practice it will be easy.
Try check this and this themes.
https://worldbuildingpasta.blogspot....ch-part-v.html
https://worldbuildingpasta.blogspot....h-part-va.html
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=40045

[Stìophan]

Many thanks again Harrg,

I have Gplates and used it for the majority of my land (except Tyraethos and Lindhaenes), and it is certainly a powerful tool. The general notion I have been going with is that the last Ice Age covered most of the planet and thus glaciation was further widespread and that the sea level is higher hence many flooded valleys and Fjords.

I will check out your links.

Many thanks again

[Stìophan]

Ok so, I've given another bash at the tectonics of the map, can anyone advise the new scheme is plausible? Any feedback would be much appreciated
Xeon Master v1.1b.png

[Stìophan]

Ok so, I've given another bash at the tectonics of the map, can anyone advise the new scheme is plausible? Any feedback would be much appreciated
Xeon Master v1.1b.png

[Tiluchi]

That said, what bothers me much more than the tectonics are the coastlines; you have a big dichotomy of coastlines here, with some bits seemingly made up of randomly generated fractals, and other parts very obviously taken from real-Earth coastlines. Honestly the former seems quite unrealistic and doesn't really match up with what we can see here of tectonic boundaries; Daeneth and Andromeda in particular look like Rorschach tests rather than continents that could reasonably form with plate tectonics as we know it. Meanwhile your sections that have been copied and pasted from the real world look quite realistic (obviously), but are quite blatantly just whole islands or continents from Earth; I see Siberia, Japan, Antarctica, and Baffin Island at a quick glance and I'm sure there's more as well. It's the sort of thing that instantly breaks the suspension of disbelief and makes me not want to learn much more about a world that I see. If this is a world you're going to put lots more work into, which it seems like it is, I highly, highly recommend spending quite a bit more time thinking seriously about coastlines and drawing your own original work, rather than relying on fractal generators or Earth maps. I prefer starting with a general idea of tectonic plate boundaries and continental crust (including the locations of mountain ranges and island chains), and then drawing the coastlines using Earth as a reference, but not copying those coastlines directly. I suspect you'll be much more pleased with that result. You have some good stuff here- Qashkavand and western Skardyr look more or less fine to my eyes- and I would recommend continuing with that before you get too far with the whole thing and realize you have a map you're not entirely please with (I speak from experience...).