The Continent

[handsome_unlimited]

Hey you!
Tired of all of these quality submissions?
Sick of these jerk cartographers with their insane skill and artistic talent?
Done with comparing your own maps to theirs in disgust?
Don't you wish you had some mediocre maps to look at?
Well, stop wishing friend, because I've got the map for you. Finally, a map that is easy on the eyes, but not so pretty that it reminds you of your own inadequacies as a cartographer. Something that you can look at and think "not bad, I could do that". Not too beautiful, but not bad either - it's a perfect compromise. Pick the middle way. Pick the Handsome Unlimited way.

Anyway, onto the map. After deciding that my world map would be a simplified outline of landmasses, I started work on a detailed map of the continent on which my games would be run... for the foreseeable future, anyway. This map was heavily inspired by Ilanthar's Ersïa map - in fact, the only reason I'm not calling it outright plagiarism is because I can't actually produce something of that caliber. Shaded relief was unapologetically lifted from real-world sources (the Tarim Basin is impossible to miss), and only altered where I found the need for a different shape.

The map is intentionally devoid of labels and boundaries, which will be filled in as I go. For those familiar with D&D parlance, this is a very typical Points of Light world setting (wherein the world is untamed and mysterious, civilization exists as "points of light" built amidst the ruins of the past, and vast areas of wilderness lie between what few settlements there are). I will be using this map predominantly as a "big-picture" tool to fit together smaller maps and keep track of distant areas that have been mentioned. My players will likely never use this map - because the world is the way it is, most of it would be unmapped. The maps that they will see will be very abstract by comparison - although they don't need to know exactly what those mountain symbols on their map equates to, I do. Although they don't need to know what lies in the uncharted section beyond the desert to the east, I do.

Enough talk, congrats (and sorry?) if you managed to read through all of that. Here's the map:

Continent Master Flattened Merged Grid.jpg

[Voolf]

This is a fine looking map. It looks like it misses something. Maybe the flat land in the south makes that impression. I am no good with relief style maps, so i can't tell for sure, but anyway this is good.

[Mouse]

LOL!

Actually that's not three bad, Handsome

In fact I see a world just waiting for a campaign and players. You mock yourself, but the land shapes, relief texture and colours are really very good... though I admit that it would have been nice with a few forest, desert, city and ocean names, but maybe I'm just being picky here.

Are you going to do a WIP thread for this, so that we can see how you did it?

[Eilathen]

LOL! I love how you kick off your post...well done.

And i do not agree at all. This is an awesome map indeed...i could never do one like that. So consider me disgusted with your talent and genius

I really like the overall continental shape and the shaded relief style is very well done, imo. I do agree with Mouse that some more landmarks would have probably enriched the map quite a bit. But it's still a very nice offering.

Also, as a fellow roleplayer i would totally like to see other maps for this setting and also, if possible, how you develop the world itself. I know, that might be asking a bit much...but hey, you can always try, right?!

Anyway, have some well deserved Rep. for this map.

[J.Edward]

The map looks great HU
I love the land shape.

[Ilanthar]

Very nice map! You've a nice transition of the topography between coasts and inner mountains.
Did you used also wilbur? The rivers looks like it could come from a wilbur render.

[Diamond]

Ummm.... yeah, what was wrong with it again, exactly?

[Kellerica]

[I]Hey you!
Tired of all of these quality submissions?
Sick of these jerk cartographers with their insane skill and artistic talent?
Done with comparing your own maps to theirs in disgust?

Haha, at least somebody understands how painful it is to browse these forums sometimes! Some people here have a bad habit of producing work so gorgeous, it makes me want to jam my stylus pen to my eyes just so I won't ever soil the world with my pitiful maps ever again. You're all very talented and I hate you.

Seriously though, I really do like this one. I like the subtle colors and the mountain reliefs. The coastlines look a tad pixelated, but other than that, fine work! It looks intriguingly empty - I'd love to see how it being filled out over time.

I hope the map serves you and your players well. Have some rep!

[handsome_unlimited]

Wow everyone, thanks for all of the kind words! Now, to reply to some questions individually:

@Mouse: Thanks Mouse! As far as WIP goes, that might be tricky - I'll show you why. Pictured here is the folder that contains various stages of my workflow (file names occasionally NSFW due to passion/ frustration)
my workflow.jpg
In saying that, I would be totally happy to explain any part of it. I would probably be happy to create a tutorial, but it would just be in the form of "Now we steal these steps from Tear's Saderan tut. Now we steal these steps from Torstan's site. Now we steal this technique from Schley's site. Now we hamfistedly use the clone stamp tool to just directly copy real-world shaded relief data onto our map."
The result would be less of a tutorial and more of a "Handsome Unlimited Bootleg Compendium".

@Ilanthar: Thanks Ilanthar, excellent eye! Yes, this map was heavily Wilbur'd. Basically, I took the finished shaded relief layer and used a few Levels adjustments to create a seperate layer for both shadows and highlights (with the higher sections being more opaque and lower being more transparent). When I merged them, I effectively had a pseudo-heightmap that I could import to Wilbur. From there, I used a bunch of erosion filters until it looked like actual elevations, and then used the eroded heightmaps as my new overlays to create new shaded reliefs.

@Eilathen: Thanks, I'm happy to share what I've learned! Were you wanting details on the setting (like, worldbuilding?) or on the map itself (as a tutorial-style thing?)

@Voolf, @J.Edward, @Diamond, @Kelleri: Thankyou! Ok, maybe there IS actually merit in compiling all of my plagiarism skills into a tutorial of some kind...

[Eilathen]

I was talking setting/worldbuilding. And maybe, as Kelleri suggests, see updated/filled-in future maps. But if you feel like doing a tut, i am sure that there will be interest as well (but i hear it's a lot of work ).