The O'ghi Islands

[JCW]

I have been on here for a while reading and learning. Here is my 3rd map and the first I feel is decent. Most of it was from following Elford's guide. Any constructive feed back (good or bad) is appreciated.

Created using PS6.
Oghi.gif

[ChickPea]

Hi JCW, firstly, welcome to the Guild.

I've moved your thread to the Regional/World Mapping WIP folder, as I feel it's more appropriate here and I think you'll get more feedback in this folder.

I think you're off to a nice start, though my first impression is that's an awful lot of trees! Wouldn't some of the areas around the towns be cleared for farmland, builiding materials etc?

[JCW]

Hi JCW, firstly, welcome to the Guild.

I've moved your thread to the Regional/World Mapping WIP folder, as I feel it's more appropriate here and I think you'll get more feedback in this folder.

I think you're off to a nice start, though my first impression is that's an awful lot of trees! Wouldn't some of the areas around the towns be cleared for farmland, builiding materials etc?

Thank you for moving it to the right place.

As for the number of trees, these are not human settlements. In fact, I have no humans in my world. I'll take a look at clearing a little more but not too much. The land here is not well developed.

This map is one of several of an RPG world setting I am self-publishing next year. If I can get them to a professional level, I will do them myself. If I cannot, then I will have hire someone to polish them.

Update: I removed some forest around the more developed towns and added a few crop lines. Did some other small touches here and there.

Oghi.Paper.gif

[Tiluchi]

Hi JCW, from one neophyte to another, welcome!

Overall, I think this is great! I like your choice of font (though when the lines are very close together it gets a bit hard to read), and it's very efficiently laid out and easy to navigate. Some of my first thoughts on it:

• There's an unpleasant black line where the rivers meet the sea- maybe you could erase that and have the light blue of the rivers blend in with the dark blue of the ocean?

• On that note, the rivers are a bit jarring with how much they contrast with the landscape- looks very "artificial" in a way that other parts of the map do not. Perhaps you could taper them so they get smaller as you move closer to their sources in the mountains?

• I like the mountains, but they seem to have some weird white JPEG compression artifacts around the edges, as if they were scaled up just a little bit too much. Not sure what's causing that. Maybe you could make them smaller and add more?

• I think you spelled "dryads" wrong in the forest in the south :-)

[JCW]

Hi JCW, from one neophyte to another, welcome!

Overall, I think this is great! I like your choice of font (though when the lines are very close together it gets a bit hard to read), and it's very efficiently laid out and easy to navigate. Some of my first thoughts on it:

• There's an unpleasant black line where the rivers meet the sea- maybe you could erase that and have the light blue of the rivers blend in with the dark blue of the ocean?

• On that note, the rivers are a bit jarring with how much they contrast with the landscape- looks very "artificial" in a way that other parts of the map do not. Perhaps you could taper them so they get smaller as you move closer to their sources in the mountains?

• I like the mountains, but they seem to have some weird white JPEG compression artifacts around the edges, as if they were scaled up just a little bit too much. Not sure what's causing that. Maybe you could make them smaller and add more?

• I think you spelled "dryads" wrong in the forest in the south :-)

Thank you for all this feedback, it really helped!

I couldn't agree with you more. Especially on the Rivers. With all of the above in mind, I worked a few more hours this morning on the map. I made a lot of changes.
-- I changed the mountains.
-- I changed the rivers (still not great). I also moved them below the texture effects. At least now they are apart of the map.
-- I changed a the text to make it more readable. Also discovered a double stroke effect that I like.
-- Changed the Dryad Forest so it has a different look.
-- Changed all of the background colors so they would be more consistent. Still needs some works and filters.
-- Lots of small fixes.

I do not have an answer at this time for how to merge the rivers into the sea. Right now I am using a stroke on them and this is adding a line when they get to the coast. I will have to find a way to redo this so they blend into the sea better.

Oghi.Paper.gif

[JCW]

With some additional feedback in RL, I have made a few more changes to the map. Besides fixing more typo's (my keys are sticking) I added more directions, a swamp and a few more details.
Made all the text white as well for easier reading.

Oghi.Paper.gif

[Tiluchi]

Hi JCW,

Overall, great improvements. I like the new mountains and the new color of the rivers. However, the rivers still have that black line separating them from the ocean at their mouths. Would it be possible to erase that line and have the colors blend into each other?

Also, I'm not sure about your new forest pattern. It looks very "digital" and artificial, almost like it was spray painted on. The other brush looks a little more digital than I'd like as well, but I much prefer it.

[JCW]

Hi JCW,

Overall, great improvements. I like the new mountains and the new color of the rivers. However, the rivers still have that black line separating them from the ocean at their mouths. Would it be possible to erase that line and have the colors blend into each other?

Also, I'm not sure about your new forest pattern. It looks very "digital" and artificial, almost like it was spray painted on. The other brush looks a little more digital than I'd like as well, but I much prefer it.

Thanks again for the imput.

Modified the new forest to bring the colors to the others. I had an extra stroke on them that might have been the issue. I'm not crazy about the design of the trees, it is from a brush package I found. They do have a different look which is important to me. Ill look around for another package and see if I find one better. Until then, I just want them to blend into the map.

Finally found a way to address the river/coast problem. The map has a lot of Stoke effects and Strokes. The rivers were a stroke effect so I couldn't remove the line. By changing them to a stroke, I could modify them. Did the same with the coastline. Still think I can do more with them, but the line is gone.

Otherwise, found more misspelled text/typos. Changed some of the text back to black as well.

Here is the updated map.
Oghi.Paper.gif

[rdanhenry]

"Calendar" is stilled misspelled in the upper right corner.

I'm glad to hear your world doesn't have humans. They're such a cliche.

What are "cowardly goblin desrerts"?

Unless there is only one mudling, it should be "mudlings' spawning grounds", with the apostrophe after the s.

I like the overall layout. You've got some interesting shapes there. It mostly like the colors. I think that the land colors go well together. The blues of the sea and the rivers/lakes don't match, though. It would probably look better if they harmonized.

[JCW]

Thank you. I have a really hard time seeing mistakes like those.

I changed the color of the sea to be closer to the lakes (almost the same). Not sure about this but am going to see if it grows on me. Also been playing with the Dryad Forest, but kept it the same for this update.

I'm not happy with the sea but the other styles I have played with do not look better. If anyone has seen a map with a style that you think would work with the overall map, it would be great to get a link to it.

All of the input has been really helpful.

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