WIP - map for novel and campaign setting

[BlackChakram]

Alright. I've taken Chashio's sketch and moved in that direction. Fairly happy with the result. Made the rivers both slightly wider and darker with each convergence to draw emphasis on the "main" course. I also gave the rivers a horizontal preference to heighten the isometric perspective. I feel like the rivers don't quite fit with the rest of the style of the map, but it could just be me from staring at it too long.

with rivers.png

[RazielKilsenhoek]

Good job! I think the style for the rivers does go well with the style of the map (as far as the overall style can be determined from this zoomed in bit). The big, main river heading north does seem a little out of place, though. I don't know why, but it pops a bit much. This could be due to lack of stuff surrounding it, though (like trees, or towns/roads/etc.) I hope it's not rude for me to say all this. Overall, I think you're making great progress.

[BlackChakram]

It's cool

The area is going to be a temperate rainforest (like you'd find on the american northern pacific coast, or canadian pacific coast). So I'm waiting to see how the addition of all those trees makes the river look. For scale, this section is about 1,500 miles on a side. its about 1/9 of the world maps I made in the first few posts.

[BlackChakram]

Alright. Here's the region with forest. I have another version with the forest washed out a bit with tan. Not sure which I prefer. I like how these forests look, but I'm worried they detract from the rivers.

with forest.png

[ascanius]

I like what you have so far, it looks like you have too much forest though. But then again it works seeing you have no towns or cities to thin the forest. I like it.

[BlackChakram]

Thanks! I thought it looked like too much forest at first, too, but then I remembered the scale. The forest is about 400 miles at the widest. If you look at a similar area on Earth (the Canadian pacific coast) 400 miles of forest is actually fairly reasonable. But you're totally right. Adding towns and labels and roads etc will definitely make it look and feel different.

[Chashio]

The forest goes well with the terrain style. The blue-ish outline around the edge of the forest is a little confusing with the darker sections of river where they appear close together, so you might make it a little more green, or do something to differentiate it from those sections of river (lighten the river, for instance).

Also, one thing to keep in mind with rivers in this perspective... you don't want to draw them on top of things. In some places you have them overlapping mountain ridges and hillsides, which is not something water does naturally and makes the drawing feel a little off where that is the case. It's okay if the rivers/streams that run out of the mountains disappear behind them (and behind treetops in the forest where the rivers run east-west). In places with valleys aligned north to south, if you make the river more closely follow the shadow line and flow around the tips of terrain outlines it will clarify the lowest point of elevation between the ridges and make it appear more natural.

[BlackChakram]

Also, one thing to keep in mind with rivers in this perspective... you don't want to draw them on top of things. In some places you have them overlapping mountain ridges and hillsides, which is not something water does naturally and makes the drawing feel a little off where that is the case. It's okay if the rivers/streams that run out of the mountains disappear behind them (and behind treetops in the forest where the rivers run east-west). In places with valleys aligned north to south, if you make the river more closely follow the shadow line and flow around the tips of terrain outlines it will clarify the lowest point of elevation between the ridges and make it appear more natural.

Haa. yeah. This was a case of being lazy trumping being meticulous. Now that I have a much better handle on my styles, I definitely should go back and redo them. Thanks for pointing that out. I had kind of forgotten I had done that.

[BlackChakram]

Ok. Latest revision. I changed the river to pop a bit more and match the style of the rest of the map better. I also added a green background behind the forest to help it seem more continuous. I also added in the tiaga forest in the north. I'm quite pleased with how this is looking so far!
Artistic NW.png

Edit: There are some perspective mistakes with the edges of the forests. Forgot to fix those before uploading.

[BlackChakram]

Alright. I've finished the topography of this map. (The dark patch in the lower right is part of another mountain range that I'm going to create in the next section, since that's where most of it is.)

I obviously still need to add roads, cities, names, etc etc, but I want to do the entire topography first. I don't think I've missed anything. Comments and suggestions more than welcome!

NW Final.png