[WIP] Hand-drawn (in photoshop) map. Critique wanted!

[NethanielShade]

I followed Artifexian's Fantasy Map Climate Tutorials on YouTube, and I'm not 100% sure if I did everything right or not. As much as I love Artifexian's videos, his tutorials were kinda bad due to the simple fact that the map he used for the examples was terrible for his own tutorial. Basically every other climate in his tutorial he said "Well, my map is an exception, so I have to do it differently." Lol. Regardless, here's my climates on the map!

Critiques welcome, as always.

Climate Map


Climate Legend


Climates Transparent


Climates, Grid, & Currents

[NethanielShade]

Click here for a gif of the globe.

Globe + My own Grid

Globe + My Grid + Map to Globe's Grid


The map looks really good on a globe! When I started making it, I made it with globe distortions in mind, on an equirectangular projection. I knew that stuff up in the north would be bigger on the map than in reality. Quite happy with how it's turned out, so far! Also, my own grid lines up with Map To Globe's grid, I'm quite proud of that!

South Pole Globe


Though I am a bit surprised by how small the poles are, it looks like my south pole is quite a bit smaller than Antarctica. Oh well, I calculated the albedo of the planet with Artifexian's tutorial, using the surface area of every climate, and used that to calculate the planet's temperature. A nice safe 15C.

Next step is to color the green terrain based on biome (like sandy in desert areas). Then, I'll be sprinkling around some magical landscapes. It's a fantasy world, and there are definitely some areas that can't exist naturally without magic. I just wanted to get all the actual realistic parts down first, before adding in magic stuff. After that, it's on to nation-building, making borders for all the kingdoms and stuff.