Lands of Cresia (WIP pictures)

[12rounds]

My first ever fantasy mapping project. Done from scratch.


I've been doing some character illustrations for the CWBP project, but as it appears pretty much a dead project, I started thinking that maybe I'll try my hands on mapping. My goal is to create a continent wherein I will detail some areas more closely and where some of my character illustrations will be placed. The WIP images here are scaled down. The original is about 3500x2400 pixels in size.


This was the starting point. Just outlining the land masses and detailing water depths.
cresia_wip_start.jpg


Phase 2 was giving the land masses a base look.
cresia_wip_landmass.jpg


Phase 3 was finishing the rough terrain features of the continent. Some glaciers have expanded into sea which I tried depicting by showing the land mass lines underneath.
cresia_wip_all.jpg


Here's a simple example of one area without downscaling:
cresia_wip_detail.jpg


The continent of Cresia is located in the northern hemisphere of the planet. It takes a rough one fifth of the total land mass of the whole planet. The planet has only a slight axis tilt and so the northern areas of the planet are permanently frozen and the equatorial region is uninhabitable due to heat. The areas depicted in the map fall between latitudes that are habitable to humans - burning deserts in the southern areas closer to equatorial regions and permanent mile high glaciers in the northern areas closer to the polar region.

Next steps are to finish the legend, name the lands and create a compass rose. Then I'll detail the regional borders, biggest cities etc on the map. After that I'll start refining smaller areas.


This mapping thing is ... jolly fun! I'd appreciate some ideas and thoughts.

[Korash]

Welcome to the mappers side of life 12rounds and YES, Yes it IS!!

Looks great actually.

My main suggestion would be to tone down the double line off the coast. As it is, it kinda makes me want to find my glasses....looks a bit blurry...if that makes any sense...

I do like the textures too

nice work, and have some Rep for your first map

[12rounds]

You are right Korash on the blurring of the coastal double line. When I scaled down the map, the coastal double line was obviously too close and blurred nastily. I'll probably ditch it completely later on. Also I think that my map scale needs rethinking as well....

[Korash]

I don't see why you would need to mod the scale....as is it is a bit wider than Canada (~1500 wider) and I think as long as North and South America. This would make the planet about a third larger (off the top of my head) than earth...

as for the coastal lines...just lower the opacity...or make it lighter

[arsheesh]

Nicely done 12rounds.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[12rounds]

Some progress.


I chose a font and named the bigger bodies of water and countries. Drafts of rivers too. Rivers are going to be altered later.
cresia_wip_naming.jpg


And here are the countries represented by areas they control.
cresia_wip_countries.jpg


I chose to rethink the scaling as well, the coastal lines are redone and also generally raised mountains to generate a little bit more snow tipped mountain tops.

[Steel General]

Coming along quite nicely...

[bartmoss]

Very nice style, really easy on the eyes - keep it up!

[12rounds]

This is a closer map of the kingdom of Akron located in the mid-region of Cresia.
Still a wip map since I need to work more on the rivers etc., but this is pretty much the style and effect I'm after. This a cropped image (about half of the original) and scaled down to 50%.



akron_close_wip.jpg



EDIT:
Getting closer to a finished map. 50% scaled down again. I whipped up the compass rose and applied it to the bigger scale map as well.
The rose has a scorpion in the center: that's because in my world, scorpion is the symbol of Calishem and the map makers of my world are from Calishem.

akron_rc.jpg