First Time Mapper - Looking for Suggestions and Criticism

[creid1192]

Hi, first-time fantasy cartographer here!

I've been experimenting on my first ever map and I have a few regions that are okay for now, but I'm not at all satisfied with this one. The gray area is meant to be a desert occupied by nomads surrounding two more developed nations that are based around two spurs of a river, one of which begins at an oasis and the other that begins in a tropical rain-forest farther to the north. My thoughts were that land would be generally not worth the time and effort to conquer or occupy if (a) you go far enough out from the river into the desert and (b) far enough inland into the rain-forest. The lighter green nation is based around the oasis and the orange is based around the delta and fertile coastal regions. The little hexagon things are my city symbol placeholders while I devise pretty ones.

This area would occur between the equator, which is where the rain-forests are and the 30-40th degree latitude, where the southern shore roughly runs.



So, with that information in mind, my questions are these:

1. Does the river coming off of the oasis look weird? I don't think rivers can actually do that and it's bothering me now.
2. What's a good fantasy-style way to render sand and deserts with lines so I can add detail and clarity?
3. Those dark brown border lines are too thick and I'm looking for a technique to revise them later.
4. Does anyone have any general suggestions of things that just look weird?

I'd love any input anybody can give. I've been having so much fun with this whole world-building thing. I have my degree in architecture, so this has been a really fun step up in design complexity.

Here's a picture of the whole world so far with the political boundaries turned off in case any of that is glaringly wrong. Those black lines are the latitude lines I'm using.

Thanks very much in advance!

[Chick]

Hello creid, Welcome to the Guild!

To answer some of your questions....

1. If you want realistic, oases are spots where the land is slightly lower than the water table under the desert, and do not flow out. So your river is definitely weird.

2. Here are a couple of ways to do deserts:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...9&d=1450063694 (using dune brushes in photoshop)
http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...5&d=1439374327 (hand-drawn and shaded in photoshop)

3. The lines are definitely too thick. As long as you have everything on different layers, you can just redraw the lines. And if not, start keeping everything on separate layers. If you have the lines and colors on the same layer, you can Select Color (on the black lines), Delete from that layer, then Select Modify Contract, then make a new layer and fill with black. That will give you a layer with thinner lines, but you'll still have to recolor it where the lines were removed.

4. You might want to work on making the transitions from one terrain to another less abrupt.


Not a bad effort for your first map! Keep working on this and I'm sure you'll improve quickly!

If you haven't already, here are some good tutorials to read:

Quickstart Guide to Fantasy Mapping: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4276

From there, go to
Hand Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=10655

And be sure not to miss
How to Get Your Rivers in the Right Place: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=3822

and
The Most Common Reality Errors:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=30156

[creid1192]

Thanks for the suggestions and links! I appreciate it.