Haumanns First map - Thoughts are welcome

[Jens Haumann]

Alright, so I was thinking I would post my WIP here.
It is my first attempt at mapping, so let me hear some of your thoughts on this.

There is not much backstory to this map yet, as my idea is to get the overview and impressions of the geographic qualities first. Those impression are already feeding my imagination with lots of intriguing stories and ideas!

I live on the West Coast of Norway, taking a bachelor in Outdoor Life (Yes, it is every bit as awesome as it sounds.). So in the last three years I have been sailing around the thousands of small islands in the fjords and I have been walking quite a few mountains as well. So of course my surroundings here are a big inspiration for creating this landscape.

I found an old map of where I live ("Volden" or "Volda" in new norwegian) if you are interested:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...2812001-23.jpg

Anyways... 1st picture, here we go:

1.jpg

For the next progress I added ocean (which I was not quite pleased with), and the biggest system of rivers.

To give you a sense of scale, I will use Norway as a comparison. You see the mountain range in the middle? Stretching NE - SE direction. The south-eastern part that stretches into the ocean is about the same as Norway.

3.jpg

In this next progress I tweaked the colours on of the terrain. I deleted the ocean, and made it up from scratch. Use another technique. You see some repetition in the texture, but I will come back to that later. My focus at this stage was to lay down the "broad strokes" to show myself progress and not to get stuck.

Also, you will see borderlines, urban icons (capitols, cities, and other towns/villages/establishment), and the most used roads for travel. These are made from the assumption that most of the known land is somewhat civilized or claimed by some superior power. That's just to give myself some guidelines for now. I may very well make some or much of this world "unclaimed" or "wild" or something later on. Time will tell.

6.jpg

So here is my progress from last night. I am remaking the mountains. I am doing this in a separate file because of fail-safing and to keep the document size down. But heres an merge test with the first mountain range done. I was originally thinking to delete the old mountain range and just use the landmass texture. However I took some fill out of it and I quite like the texture here. Although I am not sure if I want the mountains more defined. What do you think?

7.jpg

Please, let me know what you think!

These are my immediate thoughts on further aspects I want to work on:
*Finish up the mountains

• Finish up the mountains
• Improve on the river systems
• Add more lakes

[Diamond]

I like your mountains modification - that looks much more natural to me, and is an interesting fusion of styles. A pretty great map overall, actually. The landmass shapes are cool, the layout is nicely balanced, and I like the crispness of the shorelines and rivers.

Keep up the good work! Oh, and welcome to the Guild.

[Jens Haumann]

Thanks Diamond! Glad you like it.

So.. When I woke up today drunk-me had left me a touched up version of the mountains. A little bit of sober improvement and here are the mountains:

World Map Merge-down@0,5x.jpg