Isla Sorna

[snodsy]

Hi Folks;
This is a map based on the location of the Jurassic Park movies two & three, with liberties taken to information that I gather from jplegacy.com. I've added more names and added a simple historical storyline of the island. I was trying to hint at this being the island for Jurassic Park without actually saying so. It was really just an attempt to work on my map making skills in photoshop. I'd like to give a shout out to Sarithus & Max for their beautiful mountains which I've tried to emulate as I learn to draw mountains in this style. The maps are done in photoshop and then placed in Adobe Illustrator for text and border. Next time I'll do a thread which shows the process. Love this site and all the tutorials and advice is such an inspiration. Hope you like it. Snodsy

[tilt]

looks really good, neat lines, nice colors - good work

[ChickPea]

Your map is lovely, and the mountains are fantastic but I think you need to do a little editing on your text. I hope to come across as trying to be constructive rather than judgemental here, but there are quite a few grammatical errors and some of your sentences are quite clunky.

Some examples ...

In the first sentence, "get it's name" should be "gets its name".

"which have been documented occurring" might read better as "which have been documented to occur" or "documented as occurring"

"There are no known mammals, except seals and other sea mammals..." <--The second part of this sentence basically contradicts the first part.

"The climate is tropical, with plants consists mostly of endemic species" This doesn't make sense. You might want to say "consisting"?

"It's highest mountain" should be "Its highest mountain" ('It's' means 'it is'. 'Its' without the apostrophe means belonging to).

"There has been rumours". I would say "There have been rumours"

There might be other errors that I haven't noticed, and I apologise again if I come across as a grammar nazi, because that's not what I'm aiming for. Your map is beautifully done and it's a shame to be let down by errors in the text.

[J.Edward]

Great map Snodsy. Nice color and feel.

[- Max -]

Looks very nice. Very clear and legible!

[arsheesh]

This is a lovely piece. Very clean and smooth wonderful job.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[ZevesdroX]

Wow, that looks amazing! Really like the map colors!

[Sarithus]

Very nice. It's very clean! I noticed the north most mountains have a little extra rendering on them, would be nice to see all the mountains like that.

[Mateus090985]

Fantastic map!

[Sanderling]

I would agree with ChickPea that while the map is smooth and quite impressive, you need to reconsider some of your text. In addition to the catches ChickPea made, I'd also add that the text makes some claims about biogeography which are extremely improbable--in particular, that the flora and fauna "have evolved in isolation for over 120 million years."

If these islands are volcanic, it's more than likely they're much younger than 120 million years, and they're by no means isolated, not if they're only 200 miles out from Costa Rica. Keep in mind that the Hawaiian Islands, which do have an isolated fauna very much like what you're describing, are 2400 miles away from the nearest continental shoreline--more than ten times further out than the Cinco Muertes. If reptiles have made it to these islands--almost certainly by rafting, which has been proven in recent years for iguanas--then small species of mammals probably would have as well, more than likely several species of bats, and perhaps even a sloth or a primate if you want to stretch it a little. (Look up Bradypus pygmaeus, the pygmy sloth, as an example of one incredibly restricted island endemic.)

Also, keep in mind that the Hawaiian Islands have no native frogs or salamanders, since amphibians are extremely sensitive to salt water. (If you've ever wondered why there are no marine toads, it's because they can't osmoregulate in seawater.) This would likely apply to your islands as well, so you'd want to remove the part mentioning amphibians, unless some human culture, past or present, deliberately introduced one or more species.

On grammar, note that "effecting coastal regions" should be "affecting," and "the chain of island's volcanic history" should be "the island chain's volcanic history." Also, "ferns, flowering plants and a number of flowering trees" is redundant, since flowering trees are by definition flowering plants.

The map itself looks great, and I understand that's the primary focus of the piece, but there's a fair amount of text presented as well, and the content should deliver on the visual promise of the whole.