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Thread: My 1st World Map - Advice and Critique welcome

  1. #21
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    Ok so, I've given another bash at the tectonics of the map, can anyone advise the new scheme is plausible? Any feedback would be much appreciated
    Attachment 133631

  2. #22
    Guild Journeyer Tiluchi's Avatar
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    That said, what bothers me much more than the tectonics are the coastlines; you have a big dichotomy of coastlines here, with some bits seemingly made up of randomly generated fractals, and other parts very obviously taken from real-Earth coastlines. Honestly the former seems quite unrealistic and doesn't really match up with what we can see here of tectonic boundaries; Daeneth and Andromeda in particular look like Rorschach tests rather than continents that could reasonably form with plate tectonics as we know it. Meanwhile your sections that have been copied and pasted from the real world look quite realistic (obviously), but are quite blatantly just whole islands or continents from Earth; I see Siberia, Japan, Antarctica, and Baffin Island at a quick glance and I'm sure there's more as well. It's the sort of thing that instantly breaks the suspension of disbelief and makes me not want to learn much more about a world that I see. If this is a world you're going to put lots more work into, which it seems like it is, I highly, highly recommend spending quite a bit more time thinking seriously about coastlines and drawing your own original work, rather than relying on fractal generators or Earth maps. I prefer starting with a general idea of tectonic plate boundaries and continental crust (including the locations of mountain ranges and island chains), and then drawing the coastlines using Earth as a reference, but not copying those coastlines directly. I suspect you'll be much more pleased with that result. You have some good stuff here- Qashkavand and western Skardyr look more or less fine to my eyes- and I would recommend continuing with that before you get too far with the whole thing and realize you have a map you're not entirely please with (I speak from experience...).

  3. #23
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    Thanks very much for your feedback Tiluchi, I will certainly take this on board. I think somewhere in the mists of time I got maybe a little too inspired by some of the shapes on Earth, so I will definitely revise all of them into new shapes. Andromeda (Tyraethos) and Lindhaenes are relics from my first 2 attempts at map making using the Saderan tutorial, and of course this isn't tectonic based so I guess I was wanting to include them for the sake of it. The other main hypothesis I have for my world is rising ocean levels have flooded a lot of inland areas such as southern Qashqavand, the central area of Skardhyr and Andromeda / Lindhaenes. What I may do, and please advise me further here, is perhaps reduce the size of Andromeda and Lindhaenes to smaller island archipelagoes (e.g. The Philippines) rather than continents. Again many thanks for your feedback and I will certainly take that to the next stage.

    If anyone else wishes to add to Tiluchi's helpful feedback, please so so

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