WIP - Kingdom of Gamele

[Diem]

I don't consider myself artistically inclined. For the past year or so, I've always wanted to create my own landscape from my imagination. I've been practicing techniques learned online and finally decided to give it a go. This is my first attempt at a map and I decided to go for something on a regional scale. I present to you all the beginning stages of the Kingdom of Gamele. I am happy with the results for my first attempt. This is all hand drawn and I plan on altering it digitally to see what kind of results I can come up with. Feel free to give any sort of critique or advice. The input will be appreciated.

[PeriphReal]

Very nice! I'd use that map in my DnD game if that was area was in my world; I can easily recognize each of your biomes and there's a lot of interesting features! (also, the River Police would be proud of you )

Two critiques for you to consider:

1 Your forests have a bit of white space. That is normally fine; however white space is characteristic of your water bodies, so my mind gets a bit confused.
2 You have two types of pixels: completely white pixels, and completely black pixels. Even in B&W images, you have 256 different shades to work with on the grayscale. Maybe in a future map, you could try utilize shading and variation (or maybe shading techniques) to help give your maps more life and depth (of course, that's only if you want to become more artistic. What you have is perfectly recognizable and thus is fine if all you want is to just want to put your imagination on paper).

[Diem]

Thanks PeriphReal,

This map was created with the intention of altering it digitally later on. I am currently adding colour to it using GIMP and that should, in turn, make it easier to differentiate between areas. I wanted the bold pen lines with that Tolkien-esque feel combined with some added colour and texture. I am happy with the progress digitally thus far and I will be sharing a bit of this map's journey as I go along (it is a slow process as I am very much a beginner with this sort of stuff).

[Diamond]

I like it! I actually like the relative blankness of the forests, since they contrast and pop from all the surrounding plains.

I wonder though why there are no outflow rivers from your lakes?

[Mapsburgh]

Nice work!

In the northwestern part of the continent, the grass markings seem to curve around until they're slanted quite a bit relative to the page (and to the grass markings elsewhere). I'm guessing that was unintentional -- I know I learned the hard way to use a ruler to mark horizontal things on hand-drawn maps or else my labels slant more and more as I go across the page. You could, on the other hand, lean into that and make *all* of your features curve away from the center of the map, thereby suggesting a round earth or panoramic sort of view.

[Diem]

I like it! I actually like the relative blankness of the forests, since they contrast and pop from all the surrounding plains.

I wonder though why there are no outflow rivers from your lakes?

The Southern lake was purposeful. The Northern lake was an oversight but can be easily remedied. The reason for the Southern lake not having outflow rivers is because I envisioned an underground cavern system that the lake drips into and has an links up with the sea below the waterline (obviously affected by the tide).

Nice work!

In the northwestern part of the continent, the grass markings seem to curve around until they're slanted quite a bit relative to the page (and to the grass markings elsewhere). I'm guessing that was unintentional -- I know I learned the hard way to use a ruler to mark horizontal things on hand-drawn maps or else my labels slant more and more as I go across the page. You could, on the other hand, lean into that and make *all* of your features curve away from the center of the map, thereby suggesting a round earth or panoramic sort of view.

Good catch. Yes, that was definitely unintentional and I will keep that tip in mind for future maps. Thank you.

[Diem]

I've been adding some colour to the map. I'm still working in layers so this isn't as clean as the finish product will be and I'm still finding myself cleaning up a bit of stuff throughout. This is a sneak peak at my colour scheme. I think it pops quite nicely. I have a parchment background that I found off google (great resource) and found an opacity with my brush that I find works well. I have come to call this the Island of Randor.

[Diem]

I have added colour to the map. This process took longer that I expected as I am a beginner when it comes to using GIMP, but it was fun to learn the basics. I have a rough idea of where I'm going to be placing key locations and I'll let the rest of the map develop as I scan over it. I have also made some adjustments after some things were pointed out. AS of right now, I am very pleased at the progress for my first ever map. I still have some cleaning up to do in the image and that will come in time. Any comments/critiques are welcome.

[AlfansosRevenge]

Your colors are fantastic! For some reason, it makes me feel like I'm looking at a still from an old animation or something. The shading, style, and color all nicely fit

[Diem]

It's been difficult to find time to work on this map lately but I was able to do some things. I've added locations and routes of travel. My unartistic (and somewhat impatient) self decided to find a brush online for the locations. I decided on StarRaven's Sketchy Cartography Brushes on devientart. I also took the time to create the routes so that they make sense. Here's a look.