First Submission: The world of Londe

[Soulcreek]

Well, here it is. It's taken me over 2 weeks of work to finish it and some other 2 weeks to gather the courage to post it here lol.

This is a map for the world of Londe, which I've created for my d&d campaign. The map looks personally how I want it to, and there's little more I'd do to it, tho that doesn't mean I don't see room for improvement, it's just I can't.

Feel free to offer your criticisms and tell me what you'd do differently!

And like so, here goes my first map ever.

P.s.: I do have a bigger resolution pic on my pc, it's A0 in size all in all.

[Greason Wolfe]

That's some pretty good work for a first map. Not sure if I am totally sold on the coastal areas, but on the whole, it looks pretty sharp. Enough to get a good feel for what's there but not overly cluttered. Well done.

[Soulcreek]

That's some pretty good work for a first map. Not sure if I am totally sold on the coastal areas, but on the whole, it looks pretty sharp. Enough to get a good feel for what's there but not overly cluttered. Well done.

Thanks for that! Could you please elaborate about the coastal areas? 'cause it's literally the one bit I'm not sold on myself

[Greason Wolfe]

For me it is the lines in the water (can't remember what they're actually called at the moment). The texture/color fading beneath them looks just fine, but I think the actual lines themselves are maybe a little to thick and/or intense. I would try something thinner with just enough opacity to be visible. Also, you might consider doing the rivers with the same texture/color as the lakes and seas. That might make things look a little more consistent on the whole. These are just nitpicks, though. As I said earlier, this looks good for a first (digital?) map. Looking forward to seeing more from you.

[Kellerica]

Could you please elaborate about the coastal areas? 'cause it's literally the one bit I'm not sold on myself

For my two cents, it's that to me the coasts don't look like they are in line with the rest of the map. The mountain and forest markers you've used are fairly detailed and delicate, but the coasts and rivers are fairly thick and have very smooth curves. I think the coasts could use a bit more irregular and jagged look in order to look a bit more finished, and thus go better with the rest of the elements.

One other thing I personally have to nitpick on: I'd always opt for placing text on vector paths rather than going with the Warp Text command if curved labels are needed (this is ssuming you use PS like I do, no idea how other software handles this). It both allows for far greater control over the curving, and it does not distort the letters in the ugly way that Warp does. The key is not going overboard: for a U-curve you don't need more than two anchor points, and if you need to have it waving a bit then just add a third. But in general, I think curving the labels is something that should be employed with restraint; I'd only do it if it is absolutely necessary, and even then go with very gentle curves. Too much curving and the typography starts looking restless. But that is of course my personal taste.

Nitpicking aside, like Wolfe said, this is a rather nice first map. Your color choices are solid, and the border creates a solid and balanced layout for the piece. The font you chose works, it goes well with the style of the mountains and trees and creates a nice antique feeling to the whole piece. The compass rose is a neat one as well.

You are definitely on the right track, I hope you'll keep at it.

Oh, one more thing: you mentioned that the original file was A0 in size. One thing you will most likely notice as you work more with digital artwork, is that your files almost never need to be that big! At 300 dpi, for digital viewing an A4 or even A5 map is usually plenty large enough to still zoom in on the small details without it getting too pixelated, and even if you print out an A0 in full size, it's still not big enough to really see those tiny details you can see on your screen. I've had an old friend who owns a printing house say to me more than once, that if your image is created at 300dpi, you can safely print it in double or even triple the original dimensions, without the quality really dropping so much that it becomes visible. On paper much of the finer details is going to be lost even when printed in the original size.

I used to do this too as I was starting out with cartography; my maps were always insanely huge, I think at some point I worked with even bigger sizes than A0. Not only did it push my Photoshop and poor computer to their absolute limits, it also made finishing any maps a painfully slow process. It was only after a couple of years of agonizing mapping that I finally had the sense to drop my file size down, and my workflow has since then become that much more efficient.
Probably the best thing about downsizing is that finding good quality textures becomes much, much easier. I like the fact that you used one here, but it is looking awfully blurry when zoomed in at 100 %, but again, given the size of the map it's perfectly understandable.

So yeah, definitely something to keep in mind! Sometimes you do need large files, but in my experience in the beginning it's very easy to overestimate just how big is actually necessary...

Whoo boy, sorry for the wall of text! In any case, you are off to a fine start. Welcome to the Guild!

[KMAlexander]

This is a solid first piece, Soulcreek! You should be proud.

To just jump on what everyone else is talking about... I recommend matching the thickness of the border with the width of the strokes used in the landforms/flora Looks like it's about 3px on average and your edge is about double that. It'll make it look like everything was drawn with the same pen.

Also, consider outlining some of those wider rivers and then tapering them to solid as they narrow/grow younger, it'll bring more of the blue into the map.

[V1G1LANC3]

Seems Minimal and Busy at the same time, neat effect! Keep up the good work