Map of the Kingdoms and Principalities in Aran & Ilan

[Charerg]

Amazing pieces of work!

The old versions were of excellent quality, but I think the new one is going to be even more beautiful!

[Caenwyr]

Ah I feel your pain, as a fellow novel writer whose pretty much obsessed with the world building

Isn't this great, the way we all tend to spike each others' productivity ;-). the woes of unsatisfiable perfectionism!

Also, thanks a lot for the continued support guys - it's the fuel that keeps this little engine going. I'm just as curious about the outcome as you are, I can assure you.

And in that spirit, here's another update!

AWI_handdrawn_overhaul17.jpg

• added region names
• redid the entire overview map in the bottom left (it now has the same ocean colour)
• modified the placing of several city names (I keep forgetting I'm supposed to go top-down on this instead of the other way around!)
• threw all the extra junk on my map in one big box in the lower right corner, with some room to spare for future addition of more notable places)

I'm not entirely happy with how my map is actually darker than the border and the boxes - it should be the other way around, to draw attention to the map! Might tweak that in a future update. Also up next: some toying around with the colouring of the map! Not sure I should though, but I have to try.

Be sure to let me know what you think!

[Llannagh]

Dude, you can always rework those beauties again, so we get to see them all over again and in different incarnations!

Has anyone pointed the typo out yet? "Comprehendfive"?

[Caenwyr]

Dude, you can always rework those beauties again, so we get to see them all over again and in different incarnations!

Has anyone pointed the typo out yet? "Comprehendfive"?

That's a long-s, my friend ;-). Looks like an f, but the cross bar is only half as wide... Very confusing (there's a reason they decided to do away with it!) but it should give the map an extra authentic feel. You don't only find it in the title, but all over the text too.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

[arsheesh]

I really dig that font you used for the region names. Keep up the good work man, this is looking awesome.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Caenwyr]

Well, here I am with the next update. Changed and added quite a bit, again. First and foremost: I expanded the map to incorporate the northern spikes. I had that bump map lying around anyways, so it felt stupid not to use it, especially since in my previous version that part of the subcontinent seemed rather chopped off. It's a non-essential region for my story, but it helps get a good idea of he this map 'works'.

Had to redo the sea gradient because ofvthat, but that was done in the proverbial jiffy.

I also entirely redid the overview map in the bottom left corner, which now also shows the northern spike of the subcontinent. Changed the font as well, to better fit the rest of the map.

Next, since my map has gotten higher, I now had the opportunity to stuff all the info bits in the sidebar. So I moved the scale and the notable places sections there, and got rid of the rather ugly bottom right information box.

I hadn't really changed anything to the bits in the sidebar since I began with this reboot, so now was the time to be thorough. Some border changes in the map (alrady there at my previous update) resulted in Araniell having 9 principalities instead of 6, which wasn't reflected in the shield part yet. Since there was still some room to spare there, I drew three new shields and added the necessary information. I might rearrange them in the future, to reflect the geographical spreading of the principalities a little better,but that's for the next update maybe.

Next up: tons of tiny little tweaks to the labeling (town and region names etc). Still not sure if I should add river and mountain range names. I put a lot of effort in them in my previous iterations, but I'm afraid they'll make the map look less 'clean' and more cluttered, and I really want to prevent that! You think I could use numbers in the map, referring to an index? Might do that for the mountains, but even numbers might make the map too 'busy'... This labeling thing is hard!

And to finish it all, I started playing with some colouring schemes as well! They're not really finished yet, but I thought I'd give you guys a little preview already. So below you'll find not one, but two versions: a simple ink-on-parchment version, and one coloured-in to reflect biomes and climate.

AWI_handdrawn_overhaul18_parchment.jpg

AWI_handdrawn_overhaul18_coloured.jpg

I know I've said this before, but thanks for your invaluable help and motivation, guys! Be sure to let me know what you think of my progress!

[Bogie]

Impressive map! Looking good!

[DanielHasenbos]

I personally don't feel this map is too busy with labels at all, it look kind of natural. Keep up the good work, it's looking great so far!

-Dan

[Deadshade]

I have always been partial to relief maps and this one is really nice.
I vastly prefer the colored version because biome information adds really value to any map.
What I found Strange was that if the continent is Europe sized then there are mountain ranges all over the place - for my taste too many and too long. Normally the surface covered by mountains on a planet is very small because it needs tectonic plates collisions and there are not so many of them (surfacewise).

Your coastline is exemplary - did you draw it by hand or use some fractal software ?

[Caenwyr]

What I found Strange was that if the continent is Europe sized then there are mountain ranges all over the place - for my taste too many and too long. Normally the surface covered by mountains on a planet is very small because it needs tectonic plates collisions and there are not so many of them (surfacewise).

There are indeed many mountain ranges. While not exactly tectonically likely, I put them this way because the mythology of this place claims the entire subcontinent is actually the fossilized remains of a huge dragon. You can still see its backbone in the central mountain range, its front paws and neck + head to the west of that, and its wings to the east.

I'm not saying that's actually how it went - mythology is not the same as actual geological history - but I started from that point, and then kinda hid the skeleton in tons of sedimentation layers .

I guess, if you want to make this plausible on a geological level, you could say the subcontinent is a sort of Pangaea where lots of bits and pieces of older continental fragments collided and stuck together. I've never actually gone as fas as to find a detailed explanation (post factum) for the exact location of each of the ranges, so I'm afraid you'll just have to live with that partial answer .

Your coastline is exemplary - did you draw it by hand or use some fractal software ?

I drew it by hand, but in many, many iterations as you have seen. Originally my coastal features weren't very good, they were generally too large and too... regular. At one point, I decided to copy and past fragments of real-earth coastline (stolen from Google Maps) and stick them together, and it kinda evolved from that.