First serious map, Manigae by Xerocode (WIP)

[Xerocode]

Hello everyone!

I will be trying to create my first solid looking map. I will let you know about my progress.
Manigae is a large island. I intend it to be one of building blocks for a full-scale world map (comparable to Earth).
File I'm working on is 1536 x 1536 px, island we see is 100 x 100 km large.

World setting:
Manigae island formed from volcanic eruptions, separate volcanoes merged to create it. Eruptions have ceased, resulting in a very unique landscape.

Climate is similar to Central Europe - hot summers and cold/snowy winters. Temperature range is not extreme.
Mountains on the North shield lands from cold ice masses (similar to Scandinavian mountains)
Very fertile land near the shores of the inner lake and rivers. Not a lot of it, but enough to provide the local populace.
Fishing is an important part of economy and culture for the people there.
Extensive cage system.
Some hot springs in mountains, creating small havens of vegetation green throughout the year.

Style I'm going for:
Hand-drawn black&white map on parchment. Will use brushes made by others and try to draw some unique items myself and scan them.

Tools used:
Photoshop CS5.

Tutorials used (for reference):
[Award Winner] Creating a Parchment Texture in Photoshop
[Award Winner] Hand-Drawn Mapping (for the Artistically Challenged)
[Award Winner] Saderan – a tutorial
How to get your rivers in the right place
List the Most Common "Reality" Errors!
and a few more.

"Brushes used:
Compass/
Cartography

Step #1
Creating the parchment
A small 512 x 512 px sample looks like this:


Step #2
Created the landmass:


Step #3
Applying parchment to the map:


Step #4
Analysing water flow. Apart from the lake with no way to the sea, it looks ok to me. I guess I need few more small rivers and lakes. Not enough waterbodies, given the map size (300 x 300 km).


Step #5
Changing island shape and water-flow. Should be more realistic now.


Step #6
I added volcanos, reduced (fictional) size of the island from 300 x 300 to approximately 100 x 100 kilometers.
Volcano height now is 3-4 kilometers, with other mountains and hills being much lower.
There might be too many rivers, given the island size, rivers in the island middle are more like small springs, I used 3 or 4px brush on them.
I did research on volcanic islands, such as Hawaii, Galapagos, Iceland, Japan and others. Looked at lots of photos, tried to use that in this map.
I added map description, map scale and a compass. Not sure if the compass design fits the map style.
I also went through all maps with "Cartographers Choice" award, to seek inspiration and get new ideas.
I also tried drawing mountains on paper, but I could not get the color to match my other brushes.



Step #7

Edited scale bar, compass and text to fit the overall style
Fixed coastlines. Not perfect, but better than before.
Changed rivers (again).
Added frame.
Added some map markers.
Changed background texture.

Step #8

Removed the woodcut effect. Changed font on compass. Fixed blood stains. Changed font ont on everything to "Cimbria".
Added displacement map on text labels, compass, scale bar and frame.

What went right	What went wrong	What I liked
Not much went right, really. Best thing I've got from doing this map is some experience with PhotoShop and refreshing my geography/geology knowledge. And satisfaction of learning, of course	1. Not enough thought put in about the geography of my island before I had already drawn all the mountains and rivers. 2. Scanning and using hand-drawn pictures. I tried to different manipulations, but hand-drawn items did not look same grey as ones I created with brushes. Something about colors I have yet to learn. 3. Not deciding on style before drawing the map. Mixing brushes made by others with items drawn by myself. 4. Not enough experience with Photoshop. Unable to follow tutorials. Need to learn the basics first. 5. Kept drawing in wrong layers.	1. Using height maps to implement realistic water-flow.

Questions:
How believable/realistical is this map? Land and water setting? I intuitively like what I've got so far, but I'm not sure if it looks believable.
Point out mistakes, give me tips, any kind of feedback is welcome.

Regards,
Xerocode.

[waldronate]

One complaint that you might hear from your water map is that your mountains are exactly centered between your coasts. I am guessing that this effect is an artifact of using a contracted selection to find the altitudes (which gives you distance from the edges of the selection, which would center your mountains). Merged volcanic islands are likely to form asymmetric high points with regards to the coastline. Some real-world examples would be the (slightly smaller) Galapagos islands, the big island of Hawaii, and (at a slightly larger scale), Iceland. Those islands are hotspot tops, so they might be atypical.

Volcanic islands (especially young ones) tend to erode fairly quickly, meaning that the large internal channel would probably be filled up with debris and become flatlands fairly quickly. It could be dues to relatively recent drops in geologic baseline or increase in sea level, so it is plausible, if unlikely.

[Xerocode]

Thanks for taking the time to post. You made valid points. I used them when I made step #5.

[Xerocode]

Updated, current state of my map is visible in step #6.
Many things are left to do, such as bleeding the ink, maybe changing the parchment, adding villages, caves etc.
I was thinking of posting a list of mistakes I've had while making this map, but that list is too huge

[waldronate]

Looks good. One thing that does stand out is line quality. The main portions of the map are showing one of a couple of line thicknesses. The scale bar, text, and compass rose all show very different characteristics from the main map. One thing to consider is that ink not only bleeds along the paper texture, but the paper texture will cause the line position to move and possibly break up. This effect is most pronounced with finer lines (as the line thickness approaches the size of the paper grain, the paper grain will become the predominant force in the appearance of the line).

I'm not sure why the coastlines are blurry and crackly compared to the mountains: were you using the coast elements as a test of bleeding along the paper grain?

As far as the overall appearance of the map, the main thing that strikes me as weird is the very wiggly stream stuff. I understand that this is most likely a stylistic indicator of water, so it's fine in that sense; from a physical standpoint, it's fairly unlikely. That one very straight stream segment dead center on the map does strike me odd, even with stylistic license taken into account.

[waldronate]

I was thinking of posting a list of mistakes I've had while making this map, but that list is too huge

It would probably be helpful for folks in the long run if you would be willing to do a table of "what went right", "what went wrong", and possibly "what I liked". As is often said, you learn much more from mistakes than from successes.

[Xerocode]

Scale bar, compass and text are have no filters applied yet, so they look more crisp than the overall style.

My coastline process needs some work, I know. I created my landmass by using a threshold layer, I selected all of my landmass, pasted it in a separate channel, then used it as a selection and applied 3px border to it. I have a technique in mind, from Sadoran tutorial.

Wiggly rivers, I agree, that does not make much sense since there are no obstacles in their way.

[Xerocode]

Updated my map again. It's not finished, but I hope it's getting there.

Some questions:
1. Is it ok to use white background on text labels? I "borrowed" this idea from some map, because my parchment texture is too dark and text was unreadable.
2. Font choice? Using "Fraktur TL" now. Map threads on this forum almost never mention fonts used, so I went with what looked best from what I had.
3. Does the map give an impression of everything being in the same style? Maybe something stands out?

And I just noticed my rivers look too clean, need to apply some filter on them.
Thanks!

[waldronate]

1. I wouldn't go with a pure white glow on the text precisely because it contrasts heavily with the parchment background. The broad style that you're trying to get appears to be somewhere between ink on parchment and woodcut: for both of these styles, text contrast would be far more likely to be the absence of elements around text rather than paint over the elements. If you can do a layer mask around the text to knock out the mountain and coastline layers for just a few pixels around the text, I think that it would look much more consistent.

2. Font choice is a highly personal effect that has a significant effect on the overall map. The font that you used is classic blackletter font that tends to evoke for me a particular period in German history. I do recommend using similar (or at least compatible) typefaces on a single map. The use of blackletter and antiqua fonts on the same map strikes me as odd, especially if you're going for a hand-drawn style.

3. For me, the main map features are still at odds with the computer-generated elements. The CG elements appear to be done in a woodcut style that is quite different stylistically from the mountains and coastlines. I do understand that it's tough to do hand-lettering, btw. One thing that might help is to use a displacement map on the CG elements to avoid the straight lines and sharp edges on the text.

I'm guessing the reddish marks are supposed to be bloodstains. However, blood turns a dark brownish color pretty quickly. See http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...?t=7564&page=6 for an example.

[Xerocode]

1. Makes sense, will fix.
2. I only have one font used on my map, Fraktur TL. You said I've used blackletter and antiqua... I forgot to roughen one title - "Hjollsteifir woods", did you mistook it for a different font? I'm confused.
3. I used filters to "olden" CG elements, I guess they do look like done in woodcut style. Was not intentional, what I'm going for is ink on parchment, not woodcut. Need to change my approach.
4. Noted, I'll fix the blood.

Another bunch of good tips!