Help with regional fantasy map

[Marleéne]

I'm fairly new to this whole mapmaking thing, but I've been lurking around this forum for a couple of years and made a few attempt at making maps to go with my novel writing. Now I'm in the position that I need (want) a map that will help me with this current story I'm writing. I have made a world map and then zoomed it in to the area that I'll be writing my novels about. But, I could really use some help from all of you talented people on here.

I'm struggling so much with getting the sizing right. I can tell that my large crack/canyon isn't done in proportion to my mountains, but I cannot tell if I need to increase my mountains or make the crack more detailed. Could anyone give me some ideas here? What am I doing wrong? I have a distance reference in the bottom of the map that shows approximately 40 miles (one day by horse). Please ignore all the unfinished stuff on the map and the fact that I just cannot seem to get my colors right.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'm definitely not scared of critique. Bring it on! I'd love to hear what you think so I can improve and learn.

EDIT 2: To clarify, the crack I'm taking about is the large one covering the area called Devilea. The crack is an enormous split in the earth and the depth of it should be deep enough to make the mountains feel small.

Ailea_small.jpg

[Samstego]

By large crack/canyon, do you mean the one to the south of Aeriaden, or Devilea? If the latter, I think making it anymore detailed would make it seem larger if anything, and in current proportion to the mountains it appears some world cataclysmic event physically ripped a chunk out. You'd have to make you're mountains absurdly large to even that out. If you mean the former, I'd say some more detail and making the mountains larger would even out the size difference, as the mountains do seem a tad small to my eye in comparison.

[micaholism]

Like Samstego said, adding more detail would just accentuate how different-sized it is to the mountains. I don't know if it's supposed to be an immense crack or a natural canyon, but if its the second I'd try to scale it down a bit? You'll lose some detail but I think it'd look more cohesive. That being said I love the colors you used for the landmasses!

[Marleéne]

Thanks for your answers.

I suppose I wasn't quite clear in what my intention was with the map here. But the crack I'm referring to is indeed the one in Devilea. And it's meant to be enormous and it is the result of a cataclysmic event that cracked the earth, basically splitting it open. The depth of the crack is supposed to be deeper that the mountains are high (you could fit the mountains in the crack and they wouldn't reach the surface). But as of now it feels like something is off with the crack and/or the mountains. The mountains are normal sized mountains, but with the scale of my map, I'm not sure if the mountains are the correct size.

[rdanhenry]

I would expect such an enormous canyon so close to the sea to become flooded in short order. It appears to drop well below sea level, and it visibly has water running into it. Even without a channel opening to let in the ocean, it should be headed to becoming an inland sea (and then a lake, since there are no visible barriers to an outflow to the ocean once water reaches the canyon rim. Also, the Impossible Sea fits its name by having no visible reason to exist. No visible rivers flow into it; where does the water come from? The land about appears flat; why does the water find no route to the ocean or into the nearby megacanyon?

Forty miles a day is a swift pace, not implausible assuming fairly flat land and good roads, but hardly representative of pre-modern travel rates. Also, you do not need to add "by horse". Mounted and foot travel rates are not significantly different.

[Marleéne]

I would expect such an enormous canyon so close to the sea to become flooded in short order. It appears to drop well below sea level, and it visibly has water running into it. Even without a channel opening to let in the ocean, it should be headed to becoming an inland sea (and then a lake, since there are no visible barriers to an outflow to the ocean once water reaches the canyon rim. Also, the Impossible Sea fits its name by having no visible reason to exist. No visible rivers flow into it; where does the water come from? The land about appears flat; why does the water find no route to the ocean or into the nearby megacanyon?

Forty miles a day is a swift pace, not implausible assuming fairly flat land and good roads, but hardly representative of pre-modern travel rates. Also, you do not need to add "by horse". Mounted and foot travel rates are not significantly different.

Thanks for your input. I see where you concern about the flooding comes from, and it's intact one of the story points in the story too. Nobody really knows why the crack stays the way it is. This is a world of magic and powerful Gods/Goddesses, so perhaps they keep it this way, maybe they are the ones who created it. The same goes for the Impossible Sea. As the name suggests the sea should't be there, so why it is? I understand that this might not work in real life, but anything's possible in a made up world right? But the Impossible Sea might very well be created from an underground spring that for some reason pushes water to the surface and then stay's there because of it being a small crater or something. I haven't really gotten to that point yet so I have not decided what the land around the lake will look like, but it's vital that it does not have any rivers going to it, although river running from it will most likely be implemented to the map to create a nice fertile land for farming etc.

The river running into the "Megacanyon" doesn't have a visible outlet and doesn't fill the canyon with water because of heat. It flows deep into the epicenter of the world and transform into hot vapors there, which in turn ends up in the sky and falls as rain somewhere else. Perhaps another questionable solution to the megacanyon's existence, but I need to find a way for it to be there. That place is basically hell on earth and a place where criminals where dumped to die, but found a way to survive.

If my crazy explanations are too far out there to even be remotely believable, please let me know. I'd love to get feedback on where to go and what I need to change here. Right now, I'm mostly trying to figure out the right proportions between the megacanyon, the mountains and the distance. I have a feeling I might have to increase the size of the mountains and make the distances shorter. But the problem with making the megacanyon look like the massive hell-deep crack that is is (and not a badly proportioned normal canyon) is my biggest issue here.

Again, thanks for all the feedback I've gotten so far. It's really helping me and I appreciate you taking time to look at my (unsuccessful) attempt at drawing a map.

[Marleéne]

I decided to try again and make the mountains and megacanyon match better. I haven't begin to shade or color anything yet, so try to ignore my crappy linework here. But what do you think? Are the proportions better now?

Ailea2_small.jpg

[Marleéne]

I went ahead and colored the map after all, and I think I'm linking this version better than the first. It feels like the megacanyon now matches the mountains, at least enough to make it clear that it's not just a badly drawn normal canyon. Still having major issues with the colors though, but that's just something I'll have to practice go get better at. So, I think I'm kind of taking a break from the map for a while now. I need to practice drawing to I can finish the two parts I've yet to complete. That being Ademiea, which is supposed to have forests and geode-like mountains (which I cannot draw no matt how much I've tried), and also the east part of Aeriaden which is supposed to be like a badland/desert-like area (which I don't seem to be able to draw either unfortunately).

Posten one with the labels and one without.

### Latest WIP ###
Ailea_small.jpg Ailea_labels_small.jpg

[ThomasR]

I really love your giant rift but I'd say it needs you to shade the land around to sell it. Right now it looks like the rift goes (way) deeper than the ocean level. Don't get me wrong, the rift is genius and the map is great, that's just a tiny bit that seems odd.

[Marleéne]

I really love your giant rift but I'd say it needs you to shade the land around to sell it. Right now it looks like the rift goes (way) deeper than the ocean level. Don't get me wrong, the rift is genius and the map is great, that's just a tiny bit that seems odd.

Thanks for your input. The giant rift is in fact supposed to be below sea level, but I do agree with you that it needs to be made more clear that the land around it is high enough to keep the ocean from filling the hole. Suppose I need to make it a tad smaller too so that the edges isn't so close to the ocean. I'm also considering raising the entire shoreline a fair bit to show that the coastline isn't flat. It's just a matter of getting the drawing right I'm not the most talented in that department, and I'm just happy I even managed to make something that remotely resembled mountains, forests and canyons here.