Aerd regional map - feedback appreciated

[aeshnidae]

I've been working on a regional map, which is the bulk of the known world of Äerd (the inhabitants believe there is land to the west, "sun down" land, hence the name of the ocean). This grew out of a D&D game and I've really been enjoying working on it, although generally I am artistically challenged. I started with a pencil sketch and inked in the outlines once I was reasonably happy with it. Then I added some national borders, inked them, and finally gathered my courage and wrote in major area names (my handwriting is not the best).

I already see some of the mistakes I made and plan to correct: (1) better mountains to the east of Westlund and north of Elvesham, since I apparently was lazy; (2) do a 180 degree flip on the lettering on Lake Despair; (3) work on consistency in lettering and letter size; and (4) make the river that cuts the southern continent in half actually touch the mountains. I also need to add a name, compass rose, and legend (closed circles are capitals, open circles are major towns/cities, dashes are political borders, skinny barbell-looking things are mountain passes).

I would very much appreciate feedback and tips. This is my first regional map in 20 years, and my previous ones were just bare sketches for D&D games. I have a few specific questions:

(1) Does the placement of the rivers and lakes look mostly accurate?

(2) How would you recommend showing political borders when they cross the water? The bottom half of the island located northwest is part of Elvesham but I wasn't sure how to best show that on the map.

(3) The unmarked blob on the southern continent is something akin to Death Valley. Any suggestions on how best to render that?

(4) I would like to add roads, shipping lanes, some additional terrain (such as forests), and town/city names, but I'm concerned it will be too busy all on a single map. Would it be better to make multiple maps? I've got my template saved.

Lastly, I'd love to hear thoughts on hand drawing versus digital map-making. I like the feel of hand drawing but I think using layers in Photoshop or Illustrator would be a massive sanity-saver. Currently I'm thinking of hand drawing at first, then switching to a Wacom tablet. I have access to a Wacom Intuous Pro, medium sized, but have never used it.

Thank you! The Cartographer's Guild has been a fantastic resource and I've really enjoyed seeing the amazing work posted here.

[Diamond]

Welcome to the Guild; thanks for jumping right in with your map. And it's a good map - I wish I had the patience to get back into hand-drawn stuff!

As for your questions, I'll do the best I can:

1. Your rivers do have some issues. I can see two major ones:
-Southwest of Fey, there is a lake with some rivers flowing into it, but no egress river. Also, the topmost river originates in the mountains south of Fey and juuuuust when it looks like it's going to flow into the sea, it makes an abrupt turn away from the sea and terminates in the lake. Are there highlands or hills in that narrow strip between the river and the sea? Because otherwise I can't see why that river does what it does.
-on the southern landmass, that big river splits in the north. Unless that is the mother of all deltas, that's probably unrealistic (I'm not sure what your scale is here, so I can't say for sure).
-Lake Despair. Is it some kind of nasty salty dead sea? Is that why there's no rivers in or out?

2. You could just continue your borders over the water; that's what I usually do. You don't have to fully encircle the nation, just enough to get across that a part of the island belongs to another nation.

3. Maybe a stippling effect?

4. I'm all for more detail, the more the better. You just have to experiment to see what looks 'right'. I think because you've made your nation names fairly large, it's going to be tricky to add much more in there and still keep it legible.

As far as hand-drawn vs. computer - they've both got their pros and cons. I love the look of hand-drawn maps, but if you make a mistake you're basically f-ed. With photoshop and the like, you can get fantastic, beautiful maps, but unless you're a master like Max or Francesca or J.Ed, the results can seem cold and impersonal and computer-y. I struggle with that... often.

Anyway, I love the overall look of the map; keep up the good work!

[aeshnidae]

Thank you so much, Diamond! This is exactly the type of constructive feedback that I need to improve. I've also been looking through your Best Regional Map thread, which I think is a great place for novices like myself to see how others handle regional features.

You're right, I need to work on the terrain near the river that looks like it's going to hit the sea but then turns to the lake. It's supposed to wind through some hills that create a river valley, but I didn't properly show that. I'll adjust the flow and put in some terrain, plus create some tiny egress rivers.

The big river that splits on the southern continent is supposed to be somewhat like the Nile, with a big delta, but I should scale it down. Yes, Lake Despair is a dead salt and sulfur lake that formed during a cataclysmic event (the same one that created the deep chasm). Same as with the "Death Valley" area, I wasn't sure of the best way to show that on a map, at least not in black and white. If I eventually add some color, I think it'll be easier to show. I'll experiment with some stippling, too.

I'm going to do a few versions of this map for practice, so I'll reduce the size of the nation names in order to add more information without making it too cluttered. This is where I think hand-drawing at first and then adding some detail digitally would be helpful. My handwriting likely is not good enough to create tiny labels that are still legible (although I can get part of the way there by hand because you're right, some of those names are awfully large). I'll also go ahead and run my political border across the Straights of Galatin.

Thanks again for the feedback! I'm excited to continue refining the map based on what I'm learning here.

[aeshnidae]

I finally got around to fiddling with my Äerd map in Photoshop. I cleaned up the outline, corrected the mountains, added more rivers, and added some hills (both because mountains need hills, and to make it more obvious why the rivers flow as they do).




I'm also working on city/town placement. They're bright blue for ease of editing; eventually they will be dark brown. The political borders are shown in faded blue dashes; I need to find a better solution for those.

[aeshnidae]

Not long after my last update of this map, I was invited to co-GM. My co-GM had created a small region of our game's realm already. He and I wound up going full-on world building - we know the cultures, trade routes, and politics of the various realms of the known world of Ehalia. I was able to use a lot from my Äerd map, which was great. This is my first full color map in this style but all of my players are loving it!



ETA: Shannara was the name my co-GM already had in place for our game's realm. I don't think it has any relation to the Shannara books (which I've not read).

[aeshnidae]

Back at this well over a year later. We wrapped up our Ehalia campaign and I'm starting a new campaign. I knew I needed to fix up this map so I decided to revert to my own world of Aerd. This is still rather rough; I added place names mostly to make sure I wasn't missing something.

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[aeshnidae]

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[aeshnidae]

This is almost done. Just have to fix a few minor details, like fading the legend text.

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