WIP - A fantasy world for a story

[Syt]

After a recent computer failure that put me out of action, but fortunately spared my saved data I'm back to a fantasy map I've been working on from time to time (I'm a slow worker).

The setting is a fantsy world with a few various races, but little to no magic. The world has been heavily industrialized in the past few decades thanks to the discovery of a miracle mineral, and society is only slowly catching up despite having erected colonies on a neighbouring (habitable/partially inhabited) planet in the solar system (think of it as dark art deco steampunkish with fantasy and Lovecraftian elements).

The continents come from Fractal terrains (though I rearranged their position a bit to fit my liking).

The map style is Mercator in the Campaign Cartographer (my favorite for its easy of use and clarity of maps it creates).

I know the sea background and filler are tiling. It's still a work in progress - mostly aimed at conveying information. The style may seem anachronistic for, say, a largely mid-18th century setting (which the story would be despite the new industrial rush), but I wanted to create an age of discovery kind of feel.

After the lands of this world have been planned out I consider adding shipping lanes, railways and flight route of commercial dirigibles.

Any constructive comments are, of course, welcome.

[Steel General]

Looks pretty good so far.

The font you used is difficult to read at all but the highest of resolutions - something to consider later on.

[Syt]

I have moved to a version of Caslon for the land based tags. However, due to the scale of the map I fear that I will have to keep the labels so small. I guess the finished version of the world map will have 6000-7000 pixels across.

Most of the map will be "on the fly", though, editing as I make up the (background) story.

[Gidde]

Generally if you have to have labels that small, you may want to consider the level of detail you're building into the map. For instance, maps of the world usually only have country labels (and perhaps capital cities), and maps of the US have state labels and 2-3 major cities plus major terrain, then maps of a state have terrain, lots more cities ... you get the idea.

CC is very good at zoom-and-detail top down mapping; you can even link spots on your world map to your zoomed in detail maps.

[Syt]

Yeah, their atlas feature is pretty cool.

Another option would be to have different label layers for different zoom levels, e.g. one for the world map, a medium one for continents, and another for close up.

[Syt]

At long last a minor update after wracking my brains a long time about how to pattern out the countries I wanted included. You'll notice that a lot of the "-Tenaal" towns are as of yet nameless. I'm currently thinking about a naming covention for them.

Yes, this is still very large - I plan on using it as a general overview of the main areas, with smaller areas mapped out individually as required.

[Syt]

The map itself is pretty finished. I'm still debating whether to use borders or not. I kind of like it without, to be honest. The pictures have been scaled down by 50%, btw.

The next step will be to add some additional stuff - cartouches, a nice border, the coats of arms of the human realms, maybe some ships, etc.

EDIT: After cleaning up the borders a bit and adding some roads I must say I like this version best so far.

[moutarde]

Quite nice, I like it. Well done

[Diamond]

I like it also. The font's more legible than the first version, but perhaps not as artsy looking. I really like the name 'The Guild Republics' - that conjurs up all kinds of interesting images...

[Syt]

Thanks a lot, guys.

New WIP. Robbed some antique maps for artwork. Created the humans' coats of arms.

Still considering what to do with the map border. Maybe I move them arms to the sides or something.