WIP: Working on a world map

[Becka S]

Tiluchi: Yeah, I know the mountains don't look quite right. I've eroded it a bit more and redone the bump map and I think it looks better. I know it doesn't look properly realistic, making better height maps is something I'll have to learn. The biomes aren't in place yet (except for deserts). The green is the base colour. I suspect this world would have less icecap than Earth because of the south pole not having a circumpolar current but probably some.

Next I'm planning to do rivers and then forests - I may do two or three forest layers so I differentiate taiga, temperate and tropical forests. I've been trying to work through the Wilbur rive tutorial but I think I'm missing something so I may do it the old fashioned way.

world6.png
Becka

[Becka S]

So I decided to start again because having thought about it Tiluchi is right about that long thin peninsular in the north east and I'd also noticed the southern pole landmass didn't line up correctly. I tweaked a couple of other things about the base landmass as well. I think the most obvious change is the long peninsular is now an island.

This is what I've got so far on the redo. No biomes yet and I want to try and make the mountains better as well.

world ver 2-1.png

[Michael Kenner]

...the long, thin peninsula in the northeast bothers me somewhat- maybe because there's no good parallel on Earth...

What about the Northland Peninsula and the North Auckland Isthmus in New Zealand?

That sort of long thin peninsula is possible and implies two tectonic plates meeting on a transform boundary. Such an area would be quite geologically active and reasonably young on a global scale.

[Tiluchi]

Those land shapes look much better! I also like the colors you have better, although of course it doesn't really matter since the biomes aren't there yet. One thing I might suggest is to go around the coasts with a lasso tool in order to make them look a little less "digital"- at the moment they look very jagged and artificial. Some areas look fine, like the circular-ish gulf in the northeast-center, or most places with small islands. But in other places the jaggedness is rather jarring.

Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

[Becka S]

Those land shapes look much better! I also like the colors you have better, although of course it doesn't really matter since the biomes aren't there yet. One thing I might suggest is to go around the coasts with a lasso tool in order to make them look a little less "digital"- at the moment they look very jagged and artificial. Some areas look fine, like the circular-ish gulf in the northeast-center, or most places with small islands. But in other places the jaggedness is rather jarring.

Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

Can you explain what you mean by going aound with the lasso? I agree it looks a bit too jagged but all my attempts to correct it make it too smooth as happened with my first map: https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=33991 (you can probably spot that Alait is part of this world).

[johnvanvliet]

Can you explain what you mean by going aound with the lasso?

the free select tool
it's icon looks like a lasso for roping steers

for working on a map in simple cylindrical projection
( -180 to +180 and 90 north to 90 south)
i use the built in polar projection tool in gimp

map to polar


fix the poles and the seam at -180 / +180

using the free select tool and the "resysenthizer " plugin
- the north is not real bad but the south is


remap back to simple cylindrical
rejoin the north and south
fix the seam at the equator from remapping

[Becka S]

So I started trying to fix the poles and ended up completely changing the land layout at the poles. Haven't laid any colour down yet on the new version but here are the basic shapes.

world ver 5.png

[Tiluchi]

I like this layout a lot. The only thing that looks a little weird to me is how the far eastern edge of your supercontinent is basically parallel with the far right edge of the canvas. Nothing geographically wrong with that of course, but I might either make that a little less of a straight line, or move everything leftward so that it's not flush with the edge. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

[Becka S]

Nano is over which means more time to work on my map.

So I've laid down the base colours again and made an attempt at the mountains.

world ver 5.png

[Becka S]

Here comes the post where I annoy the river police X-D

I've laid down the rivers and, yes, there is a river bifurcation and yes I am aware that's not the usual way rivers behave but I'm also aware it does happen and it has important world building implications here.

There's also a long canal but I would hope canals are relatively uncontraversial. I've also tentatively put in the biome colours for the arctic and antarctic regions. Tentative because the south pole isn't permanent icecap but tundra which is ice free on the surface in summer (though there is permafrost below).

world ver 5-2.png