[WIP] Looking for feedback on this regional map

[swiss]

This is my first real WIP map. Would love feedback on anything but specifically:

- Mountain ranges
- Rivers
- Land masses/islands
- Forests
- Climate coloring (i.e. does that desert between the mountain ranges make sense, etc.)

[FaeThropp]

I really like the style of this map. The colours are nice. About your questions: I'm no expert, but I guess, if the wet wind comes from east and the mountains are high enough they can be a border for the rain so the western side is dry desert. Your rivers look quite realistic to me but the coastline yould be even rougher. Altogether you might want to work a little on the scaling. From looking at it I couldn't guess the scale of your map. Especially the icons are slightly confusing as they are really big compared to the mountains. Also your castle icons semms to be missing a shadow (nice detail for the others by the way). After that your could even add a little structure to your landmass, some smaller scaled bumps and sinks and/or a rougher underground (maybe looking sandy in the desert or something like that).

[LizardInk]

This is looking great! You've got some good feedback already in the post above, and I'd add a small, stylistic suggestion of blending the terrain colors a bit as they're quite stark right now and a bit jarring. Have you thought of adding some snow at the mountain peaks? That would help create an illusion of height and scale. Really nice overall, great colors!

[OldEarth]

In terms of the climate zones that's going to be affected a lot by latitude and how big the landmasses are. So it's hard to say without a wider context or scale...

If you want more detailed climate input a few more details are needed... basically, how big is the map? And how much landmass is there not pictured off to the west? And at approximately what latitude are we at... do you have an Earth equivalent city that you would say is climactically similar to one of your settlements there that you could use to place it there?

The climate is hard to comment on because the wind directions are tricky to put together as shown it looks like you are rainshadowing from both east and west suggesting you have rain-laden winds coming from both directions....

As a general climate comment the central desert extending all the way to the south water makes less sense simply because it doesn't also extend all the way to the western mountain range... and if wet air can come from west and/or east you'd expect that lovely water-way to provide some rain to that zone

...But before I get too deep into it, it depends on how realistically you want to model the climate.

Because if you are content with just plausible, then you don't really need to worry about it because it's probably fine. I use a really simplified "realistic" climate modelling for myself and I'm sure other people here get far more into minutiae than I have the patience for, and then other maps are perfectly fine with, "I would like a desert here" because I think it fits the story I'm telling for this map or because I think it looks good

[swiss]

From looking at it I couldn't guess the scale of your map. Especially the icons are slightly confusing as they are really big compared to the mountains..

Thanks for the feedback! The way I think about scaling (and I totally made this up just from observing other maps) is there are two kinds of maps, literal and figurative. A literal map would have completely accurate scaling, 1 mountain = 1 mountain, all rivers are shown no matter how small, etc. I experimented with that but found it too challenging with this particular tool and would have to make some sacrifices I didn't want to make. For instance, I want it to cover a large area, say over 500x500 miles. But if I do that I can't really show castles/towns, as they would be relatively too small to see. So I opted for abstract, but after reading your feedback I wonder if I'm thinking about it the wrong way. How would I keep the mountains the same size and still be able to show towns? Or would I just not?

[swiss]

blending the terrain colors a bit as they're quite stark right now and a bit jarring. Have you thought of adding some snow at the mountain peaks?

Thanks! I agree on the blending. I'm using Inkarnate and the max softness for the brushes is 1, which I used. It's possible to blend it better, just takes a long time =)

I did think about snow, in fact I think I accidentally left some snow trees on the upper islands, but then I thought I might be boxing myself in in terms of size since I have a desert region in the south. If I have snow in the north and this place is like Earth then I wonder if I'm making the scale bigger than it actually looks. Not sure if I'm thinking about that the right way though

[swiss]

In terms of the climate zones that's going to be affected a lot by latitude and how big the landmasses are. So it's hard to say without a wider context or scale...

If you want more detailed climate input a few more details are needed... basically, how big is the map? And how much landmass is there not pictured off to the west? And at approximately what latitude are we at... do you have an Earth equivalent city that you would say is climactically similar to one of your settlements there that you could use to place it there?

The climate is hard to comment on because the wind directions are tricky to put together as shown it looks like you are rainshadowing from both east and west suggesting you have rain-laden winds coming from both directions....

As a general climate comment the central desert extending all the way to the south water makes less sense simply because it doesn't also extend all the way to the western mountain range... and if wet air can come from west and/or east you'd expect that lovely water-way to provide some rain to that zone

...But before I get too deep into it, it depends on how realistically you want to model the climate.

Because if you are content with just plausible, then you don't really need to worry about it because it's probably fine. I use a really simplified "realistic" climate modelling for myself and I'm sure other people here get far more into minutiae than I have the patience for, and then other maps are perfectly fine with, "I would like a desert here" because I think it fits the story I'm telling for this map or because I think it looks good

Thanks for the feedback! I don't have answers for those questions you posed, and you're right on point with the last paragraph. I see some maps on here where it looks like they put months of thought into the climate. My goals for climate realism are much, much less ambitious and can basically be summed up as "does it just NOT look completely ridiculous and unrealistic". So it it passes that test, I'm happy in terms of climate

[OldEarth]

So with most maps that show significant distances and have stylised depictions you wouldn't want to show one mountain for every mountain in there... because there will be many many thousands in a mountain range.... way more than you could hope to depict and remain even slightly coherent with this style (as a general rule the only maps that are essentially showing 1:1 mountains in a range are generally ones that look "wrinkly" or more satellite-style)

So basically all you need to include to give people looking at your map a sense of scale is a scale bar of some sort. You can use just a simple scale bar (even just one that shows what 50 miles looks like, for example), a border scale, a labeled grid over the map, basically anything that someone can look at and say, "oh, it's about this distance between here and here"

In the absence of a scale like that the only cue that someone could use would be things such as relative size of settlements or objects of other known sizes for a clue... but if you put your scale in explicitly then you can be as stylised in your depictions as you want and people will still be able to figure out how far apart everything is. That's all that is meant by scale when it comes to practical mapping, some indication of how far apart the things depicted are... while this can be done by showing some things at actual size it's much easier to just include a scale bar of some sort.

(Fun Note: a scale on maps doesn't even have to be a formal measurement... a dotted line between one place and another labeled "50 paces" on a treasure map also counts as a scale)