I'm back and I need help :D

[Dark Minstrel]

Hey everyone, it's been a long time.

Haven't really drawn many maps in a long time. Did some concept sketches but no maps

Anyway, I'm back and am working on a world map for a friend.

It's a big project but this is the start of it.

This is also the first real drawing I've done on a digital tablet xD

Any feedback is more then welcome!

Cheers everyone

[Diamond]

Holy crap! Well I'M impressed. The layout is cool and the mountains are fantastic. My only complaint is the way your rivers split and reform unrealistically, unless they've been engineered by magic or manpower to look that way. A minor nitpick would be the sharpness of your icons vs the more naturalistic look of the mountains - what about adding a very slight blur to them to take away some of that clashing sharp-edged look?

But yeah, awesome map!

[Dark Minstrel]

Thank you for the advice.

I'll do some more work on the icons. Were you talking about the rivers in Delynn or Nyban? The rivers in Nyban were based on a real geography map of old Germany.
It may be a lot to ask (and I'm sorry if it is) but could you circle the issue. I'm not sure I completely understand.

One more question, I'm not sure about the deciduous trees. I'm thinking of covering more of the area in them.
Medieval-renaissance Europe (the general time period of my friends world) was mostly covered in forest (except the coastal areas).

Also, I'm still waiting for a lot of information from my friend about the local government and the like so I need to leave space for it :9

[Tiana]

Wow, the mountains are fantastic.

[Caenwyr]

Wow, the mountains are fantastic.

I second that! Can't wait to see it shaded and coloured. This is gonna be a beauty!

[Diamond]

For the rivers, mainly in Nyban. Rivers flow from highest to lowest elevations, joining together as they go to form larger and larger rivers. They very rarely split later down their course, and if they do the river will 'reroute' to the path of least resistance. You won't have a river split that far away from the coast and maintain both branches for years or decades. Exceptions would be deltas, or swampy regions where rivers split and reform etc etc. A lot depends on the scale of the map too; if this is a relatively small area then the river splits could be more natural and longer lasting. But if for example the area where those rivers that split in southern Nyban where those two peninsulas are, is hundreds of miles across, it's very unlikely to have a river split to either side of the peninsula like that.

For the trees, I actually like the pine trees a lot; they seem to mesh better with the mountain design.

[Dark Minstrel]

I'm about done with the geography (mountains, forests, rivers...) but I'm not sure how to procede. There are large empty areas. I could try to add colour to it but I don't have any experience with digital painting/using colours. Does anyone have experience with adding grayscale/drawn texture? Any advice?

[Dark Minstrel]

Here's and update. I'm slowly populating the world with info I'm getting as well as shading the details. It's going slowly but I'm happy with it


Nyban and Delynn.jpg

[Stìophan]

Just come across this after posting on my own thread, and have to say the level of detail is amazing. Have to ask, what software are you using? Whatever it is keep up the good work.

[Dark Minstrel]

Thank you Stiophan. I'm using Photoshop with a simple drawing tablet and that's about it. I'm quite new to digital drawing, I'm used to making maps with paper and pencil for my D&D group but I thought it was time for an upgrade