Reply With QuoteSome progress made, I think I am done with rivers for the moment.
[WIP] Kervria Regional map
Starting a thread to get input on a regional map for my campaign world. Please feel free to be blunt, I have thick skin. =) I am posting early in hopes of catching major errors before major rework is required. First thing I am working on is rivers which I understand is an easy place to screw things up. Below is the region in just black and white, inverted V's represent the future positions of mountains as a guide.
Does the first river look okay? I drew it in with a paintbrush, converted to a path, fractalized the path off and then modified the path to make it look more reasonable. Are the blockages and resulting lakes reasonable? The merging?
- Ernie
Some progress made, I think I am done with rivers for the moment.
A good bit of progress in adding the mountains. I will need to tweak some of the river paths, but I expected it and it should not be a big deal to do. Would love to hear thoughts on realism or any critiques.
- E
Hey, this looks cool. Just looking at the mountains I think you could get them looking somewhat more real: at the moment they look as though they run along a fault line between tectonic plates, which is good: mountains run in ridges. Besides running in ridges, though, mountains build up over time and in ranges. If you look at (for example) a satellite map of New Zealand's South Island you will see that instead of a single long ridge a mountain range is made up of several parallel ridges of greater and lower height. I think adding that kind of depth to your mountains would help to make this map more realistic.
Also consider that mountain ridges don't necessarily run in the same direction as the range itself: mountains are formed by a slow motion but ultimately very violent process. They are bits of crust broken and forced up into the sky, not gently shoved into place. Looking again at the South Island you will note that the mountain range (the Southern Alps) runs roughly southwest to northeast, along the tectonic margin. The ridges or massifs that make up the range, though, run across its general grain, often from the southeast to northwest.
So I think if you take a look at your mountains and look at a) building them out from ridges into ranges and b) making sure the ridges flow in varied (but broadly consistent) directions sometimes opposed to the overall orientation of the range, you will have a much more realistic map. Then we will look at weathering: those two processes are basically how you get foothills and highlands around your mountains, anyway.
So for reference, something more like:
So to do that from a technical standpoint in GIMP, I'd need to edit the angular fill to have side spurs? Like so? (forgive the crude graphics)
I am pretty new to cartography and my geology knowledge is concentrated on tha Lapidary side of things (so more like chemical make up of rocks), so I think I got what you were saying but want to make sure. Is there a rhyme or reason to the side spurs or random is okay? Do they generally all follow the same angle range or vary widely?
Honestly, I am really happy with the southern most range so I probably won't mess with it much right now, but the other two seems a bit.... spare? So happy to tweak them if I can manage it.
- E
Okay, so I did a lot more than just tweaking the mountains to incorporate the ideas from above. I like the results, not sure it is perfect yet and I will have to majorly rework the southernmost river as it needs to have that crater lake at some point for story reasons. But other than that, I did tweak the oceans a bit, played with some coloring (especially for the mountains and where they meet the lower lands) and feel like I have made some progress. Any thoughts?
- Ernie
Latest image. Canyon river on southeast coast added, see discussion here.
Next up will probably be a rainforest in the southwest, plus other forests. Cities and political maps in the works as well.
- E
The forest was not calling to me today, so I added the compass and key plus a couple cities.
Also putting up the first pass at a political map.
To do:
Another river or two for Vria.
A few more lakes.
Towns for Vria, plus another 1 or 2 cities
Towns and cities for Kertz
Roads
Southern rainforest in Vria
Central forest in Kertz
2 northern forests in Kertz?
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