Kaherm (an attempt to revitalize old map)

[mat_r]

This is looking great! Especially loving the shapes of those mountains!
Forests are one of the hardest things about making a map for me personally. But I think you solved that farily well
One of the trickiest parts is shading them in a way so the scale feels right compared to the mountains. For example, on that middle forest on the north coast it feels a bit off in my opinion, because the "blobs" of shadows and highlights are relatively big compared to the small detailing of the mountains.

[Llannagh]

I really like the "painterly" feel of the map.

Sorry about my earlier critique, I didn't have much time and mostly forking rivers are a no-go according to the River Police. So I guess we all learned something.

The only trouble I'm having with the perspective you picked is that to my eye it seems to "curve" upwards on the top third of the map. But I have that problem with almost every map that uses this perspective. By perspective I mean the way your mountains and forests and icons are depicted. Don't know if perspective would be the right term, but it's the closest I know.

Anyway, great stuff!

Edit: repped you, because I also like the amount of detail you have in your map already!

[Falconius]

It's a wonderfully drawn map. However in the latest iteration you have added a river that connects two different coasts.

[Mouse]

The colours are looking great, Voolf

[Tiluchi]

Heavens, this is beautiful. Echoing other comments, I especially like the mountains and forests, though I also like that little marsh area you have and the volcanic desert in the southwest. My one criticism (and it's a minor one) of the forests might be that the transition from coniferous forest to deciduous forest in the northeast part looks a little forced- perhaps you could make it a little more gradual? Also, you have a bit of coniferous forest to the south of deciduous forest, which might not make sense if you're a stickler for botanical accuracy :-)

I will admit that the splitting river in the western part bothers me a little bit, but if you're wanting to stick to the original as much as possible it's not a big deal. Also, there's a black line where rivers connect with lakes that's a little distracting.

I'm splitting hairs here, because this is overall a beautiful map! I'm jealous. Keep up the great work!

[loogie]

I agree, I love the aesthetic of the map, it looks great. I also agree with Falconis, the river going through marshland on the right-middle... it would be very unlikely to empty both to the north and west of that peninsula. Rivers pretty much never empty in 2 different coastlines, the only argument i could think of would be the delta... which.. beyond being fairly rare in world standards, is pretty much exclusively the break up of a river into multiple outlets to one coast, i doubt it happen otherwise. If course if there is a specific reason for that, or... magic.. anything is possible... but to me the peninsula would be cause due to a higher ridge of land, to me it looks like it'd stick to the west side, which means the norther outlet of that river would be the most plausible (since it has a pretty huge inlet carved in to the land as well, and a river of that size would have a fairly large amount of water travelling that distance, so such larger ammts of erosion would be plausible.

The only only thing that i see with the map is the shading.. the mountains are wonderful. but they also create a basis of lighting and shading, and to me, some of the other features don't follow that shading, so they appear as flat, or "tilted" where they probably shouldn't. It's not that they are wrong, it might be exactly what you are trying to portray, but I thought i'd mention it... The fix for this would be a heavier reliance on shadows on the lower right portion of the dunes/drifts/forests throughout the map.

[Domino44]

This map is looking great, I saw this thread when you first posted it and I was meaning to comment but I'm just getting to it now... Sorry :]

I think your mountains are absolutely beautiful! I also like the way you did the desert lands, I like your colors for the most part as well I'm just not sure about the forest color. Having them colored so vibrantly compared to the rest of your map makes them look out of place and a little cartoony. I would also say that it would do you good the have the drop shadows to the forest a little smaller IMO. Again Lovely map, and I'm really excited to see it finished!

[Voolf]

This is looking great! Especially loving the shapes of those mountains!
Forests are one of the hardest things about making a map for me personally. But I think you solved that farily well
One of the trickiest parts is shading them in a way so the scale feels right compared to the mountains. For example, on that middle forest on the north coast it feels a bit off in my opinion, because the "blobs" of shadows and highlights are relatively big compared to the small detailing of the mountains.

Thank you for the opinion. I though something is off with the middle forest i will change it to mach the other one. Btw, i just saw your Kingdom of Sayarin and you got there some pretty forests. Your technique is quite nice.

The only trouble I'm having with the perspective you picked is that to my eye it seems to "curve" upwards on the top third of the map. But I have that problem with almost every map that uses this perspective. By perspective I mean the way your mountains and forests and icons are depicted. Don't know if perspective would be the right term, but it's the closest I know.

In this case you may be right. When i did my lines i forget to modify the land to reflect proper perspective. Warlin was the one that enlighten me about that. I did modify after that the southern island and the south part of main land, but i left the north part untouched. This is my laziness. Because of that map may look weird in some places unfortunately. I am not gonna fix this now because i would have to redo almost everything. I will pay more attention to this in my next maps.

It's a wonderfully drawn map. However in the latest iteration you have added a river that connects two different coasts.

I am sorry, but i do not know what river you are talking about and what coasts.... In my lastes update i added two rivers that Eld suggested in his post

The colours are looking great, Voolf

Thank you, i may change them later though

Heavens, this is beautiful. Echoing other comments, I especially like the mountains and forests, though I also like that little marsh area you have and the volcanic desert in the southwest. My one criticism (and it's a minor one) of the forests might be that the transition from coniferous forest to deciduous forest in the northeast part looks a little forced- perhaps you could make it a little more gradual? Also, you have a bit of coniferous forest to the south of deciduous forest, which might not make sense if you're a stickler for botanical accuracy :-)

I hevn't considered this as a world scale map, more like a Europe-like size, thus mixing coniferous forest with deciduous forest are not strange thing to me. I will work on better transition between two of them though. Thank you.

I will admit that the splitting river in the western part bothers me a little bit, but if you're wanting to stick to the original as much as possible it's not a big deal. Also, there's a black line where rivers connect with lakes that's a little distracting.

I want to stick to the original, but i have changed a lot already . I am keeping this split river not only because of the original map, but also because it is not something that is impossible in nature.
The black lines will be gone, rivers will also be change a little. Haven't worked on them yet.

The only only thing that i see with the map is the shading.. the mountains are wonderful. but they also create a basis of lighting and shading, and to me, some of the other features don't follow that shading, so they appear as flat, or "tilted" where they probably shouldn't. It's not that they are wrong, it might be exactly what you are trying to portray, but I thought i'd mention it... The fix for this would be a heavier reliance on shadows on the lower right portion of the dunes/drifts/forests throughout the map.

That is actually a great tip. I have big problems with shading and i totally understand what you are saying. I will try to play with the shadows more. It is hard to crack down how much shadow i yet have to put on the rght side and with what volume. Thanks.

This map is looking great, I saw this thread when you first posted it and I was meaning to comment but I'm just getting to it now... Sorry :]
I think your mountains are absolutely beautiful! I also like the way you did the desert lands, I like your colors for the most part as well I'm just not sure about the forest color. Having them colored so vibrantly compared to the rest of your map makes them look out of place and a little cartoony. I would also say that it would do you good the have the drop shadows to the forest a little smaller IMO. Again Lovely map, and I'm really excited to see it finished!

Thank you, i will adjust colours later on when i paint rest of the land. I will also try reducing the shadow cast by forest on the ground.

Thank you all again, that was a lot good critique here.

[Warlin]

Hey Voolf it's an amazing job you've done on the shading and the coloration. I hope I will able to do that one day. For the perspective and the modification of the land mass, don't worry, the problem will only arise if you present the top down map with the perspective one. I think we can't remember no more the top down one when we see this beauty ...

[Falconius]

No, it's my mistake in the last one you added a river that comes down from that north lake and merges into another river before going into a forest. At first to me it looked like it was also heading out of that northern lake, passing through the mountains north of the lake, and emptying into the middle fjord.