WIP Vardenia & Urenia

[Caenwyr]

Hi Max! A fantastic map, and I like how you did the borders over the mountains! Maybe I should try that as well!

One tiny remark: On the left map I see the word "septentrio" (North), on the bottom right map however it spells "SEPTEMTRIO". I guess that's a typo.

Also, while your cardinal directions on the left map are written in lower case and in the border, on the bottom right map they are written in upper case and on the map itself (just inside from the border). Just letting you know in case you wanted to keep some consistency between the two maps.

Other than that, another great map, Max, albeit in a different style than usual. It reminds me of this map (I can see my house from here!). Great job, Max! Keep it coming!

[Domino44]

looks amazing! like always.

[- Max -]

Thanks for the support all you guys!

This really is beautiful. I'd change the region outline at the top to a different colour though, the green looks a bit like it's indicating a more fertile (i.e. green) strip of land when it's near the coast.

Didn't think about that, hmm yea I'll think of it!

As always a very nice overall design/look.
Mapwise, i am not that fond of this style - rivers are too dominating (look more branch-like than rivers), the mountains are a bit simple and too hill-y for my taste and the tree-symbols (at least at this resolution) are not to my taste.

Rivers, mountains and trees were done to emulate some late 16th century style, with those weird rivers, simple round hatched mountains and spined trees

I really love this style. And the non map elements are particularly nice. But I find your text placement really bothersome. All of the broken words are kind of jarring.

I would think the same on a map if it wasn't to give it the specific historic style touch. You might want to check some maps from this period, you'll see that curved texts and kerning weren't really used and that broken words were used a lot. That is what gives some charm to those maps

I really have a soft spot for 1600-1700 maps, and I can see that you (and Sapiento, on this site, I don't know if others have ventured on this terrain) can reproduce them with your own personal style, without loosing a strong tie with Blaeu, Ortelius and other cartographers's style of that era. Congratulations!
Amongst the great features I particularly dig the cartouches, they are really beatiful. You wrote you hand drawn them; may I ask you if you did them with a wacom tablet (or similar) completely free hand or if you used shapes (maybe in illustrator)?
If you don't mind, I also would like to know which fonts you used. Thanks!

Thanks Fabio! The cartouches, the boat, the cities icons and all the geographical elements are free hand, drawn with a tablet. Also the fonts used are Telegdi, both regular and italic versions and Chapbook.

Hi Max! A fantastic map, and I like how you did the borders over the mountains! Maybe I should try that as well!

One tiny remark: On the left map I see the word "septentrio" (North), on the bottom right map however it spells "SEPTEMTRIO". I guess that's a typo.

Also, while your cardinal directions on the left map are written in lower case and in the border, on the bottom right map they are written in upper case and on the map itself (just inside from the border). Just letting you know in case you wanted to keep some consistency between the two maps.

Other than that, another great map, Max, albeit in a different style than usual. It reminds me of this map (I can see my house from here!). Great job, Max! Keep it coming!

The Septentrio and Septemtrio "typo" are intended. I saw both use of them on those historic period maps Also the same for lower case and upper case cardinal directions. I wanted some of what could appears for us as inconsistency but that was frequent on this kind of maps.

[Diamond]

I really love this style. And the non map elements are particularly nice. But I find your text placement really bothersome. All of the broken words are kind of jarring.

That's simply following the style; many (or most) maps of that period do this.

[- Max -]

An update with the main outline of the bird's eye (small) city view of the upper right frame.

Vardenia7.jpg

[- Max -]

Added some details and the river.

Vardenia8.jpg

[Wingshaw]

I really like the city view, although shouldn't there be some kind of gate between the middle and top parts of the town? Anyway, the town view has a very authentic feel to it.

The main parts of the map have a few things that I don't think work too well. The national borders look too sharp and clean (especially the coast of Regio Linatuca and near R Meldorania in the east).

I also think the hills/mountains in Urenia look a bit too clean. Could you perhaps blur the outlines of the hills, to give it a more weathered and (hopefully) authentic appearance? I don't think it is so necessary in Vardenia, because the hills/mountains are smaller.

Those issues aside, this is really looking great. The labels are very very good.

THW

[Lingon]

This will become awesome… Well, it already is, but I mean… you know It looks fantastic. I love the inconsistencies and the partly odd labeling, it adds a lot of flavor.

[Ilanthar]

A city?! Very nice addition

[Sapiento]

This map develops into a real beauty.