First map, what can i do better?

[BluePhoenix175]

This is my first attempt at making a fantasy map using GIMP, and my first time using more than the basics of GIMP.
this is what I have so far. before I get too far into it I would like people with more experience to look it over and make suggestions on what I can do better. some things I'm already going to change are, make a border around the city names somehow, I think I like the brown gradient for water better than the blue, and add detail to the water somehow.

[Hai-Etlik]

Sorry I didn't have time to clean this up so it's a bit of a jumble of ideas.

Think about why the map exists, who created it, why did they create it (Navigation, reference, political or religious reasons?), how did they get the information for it, what tools did they have to make it with (Did they have modern computer graphics software?), what level of knowledge of geography, cartography, navigation, etc do they have.

How do the people responsible think about the world? Do they have modern idea of "Westphalian Sovereignty" with fixed borders?

What is the extent of the map? How much of the world does it show? What shape is the world? If it's a globe, where on the globe is this?

Just thinking through all of those questions should help a great deal.

I'd strongly suggest working out all your geometry first, then only once you have that completely (or at least almost completely) nailed down should you start to think about cartography. Then the first step in cartography is to remove as much information as possible. Less is more: if you don't need to include something to accomplish the purpose of the map, don't include it because it's adding clutter that distracts from the important things. Having thought about it and integrated it with everything else will make for a better map even if it's not represented directly as features on the map. It's like the writing advise that you need to "kill your darlings".

Your geometry is "blobby" and suffers from "rectangularitis". You've drawn some broadly wiggly lines that fit neatly into your rectangular map extent. Some medieaval maps did sort of do this, although they tended to use higher frequency wiggles and a circle rather than a rectangle. They also differed from modern maps in many other ways so if you want to create a medieaval "mappa mundi" type map that's something you need to decide right up front.

The placement of what appear to be settlements also seems far too regular and the distribution of sizes of the settlements seems off, think about each city needing to have a certain number of towns around it, each town needing a certain number of villages around it, with each town needing to be within a minimum travel time of a city, and each village needing to be within a minimum travel time of a town.

You have harsh pixelated lines that do not look good at all. You also seem to be combining feature symbols that were drawn at different scales which gives them a mismatched appearance. The texture behind everything also seems to mismatch with the symbols You are also reusing symbols a lot. The way you overlap them in the forests ends up as a cluttered mess. You would need to use symbols that can "erase" the symbols behind them by having a white fill inside them.

Those gradient effects you use for the water look extremely "done on a computer" as is the bright blue colour. The way the gradient fills in from the edge of the map extent also looks very "off". The only physical medium that could even come close to that would be airbrushed paint and even they it still wouldn't look quite like that.

[BluePhoenix175]

I started over after doing some more research based on your advice. I'm making this as a player handout/reference for my D&D group and to also help me visualize the world I'm building. I'm not too concerned with realism as long as it's not a glaring "this doesn't fit" thing, in the future when I have more experience I will try for more detail and realism.

Heres try #2

[BluePhoenix175]

note for moderator reviewing - I'm not sure if I should edit my previous post or make a new one.

after making a few happy accidents while playing around with the various things in GIMP my map is further along than I ever thought it would be and in a style, I was not intending. I have gotten to the point where I'm placing cities to take a break from the frustration of tweaking / redoing the mountains. after several cycles of placing cities, then thinking there are too many, removing some, then thinking there are too few, adding some small towns....over and over. I don't think I can trust my own judgment on them anymore, please help!

[Skaald]

Asking yourself if your country has enough cities is not the good way to think about it, in my opinion. Don't watch your map asking yourself "how do I fill the gaps ?". But think about how the country look and how it's affecting the inhabitants.

All the processing of maping is like a chain of events. Placement of mountains give you the floods of water, rivers, and lakes. Wet and dry lands are then visible. Forests and deserts follows. For cities, it's the same.

Where do people settle ? In places with space, because they surely have to plant things to eat, raise animals, and so on. They need to exchange with others : places where two or more rivers are crossing, or in the seacoasts are often very populated. Peoples are living in harsh places like mountains, deserts, or in deep forests, only if there is a valuable reason : ressources, protection against ennemies, etc.

Maybe the cities on your map are too equally distributed in that regard. Try to figure where are the places where it's good to live : place some cities there, and a very few outside this zones.

[waldronate]

It sounds like there are two distinct things that you are trying to do: worldbuilding and cartography. Worldbuilding is defining the context for stories that you want to tell. Said context will include things like where the mountains are, where the rivers are, where the people are, why those people are there, and so on. Cartography, on the other hand, is making an abstract model of what is (in this case, the output of your worldbuilding). Maps can be used as feed into worldbuilding and worldbuilding can be used as feed into new or improved maps.

When you make a map, why you're making it will dictate what should be on that map. Worldbuilding often proceeds from very rough sketch maps (e.g. the hero's road from home to destination might need a volcano and an ally, which right away tells you a few things that need to be on the map) because the sketches will show only the important things, not the unimportant things. There might very well be a village with a strange name halfway across the continent, but if it's not part of the reason for the map, it shouldn't be on the map.

As far as settlements go, there should be a reason for them to exist. Go to your favorite search engine and read a few articles on "central place theory" (the Wikipedia article is a good starting place). Understand that distances will largely be related to how far someone can reasonably travel in a day (taking into account terrain and other things) instead of just using a ruler on a piece of paper and you'll be a long way toward getting things in places.

I recommend looking at some maps that you like and see how things are done there.

[BluePhoenix175]

Final Update

I took a break, stepped away from the map for a week or so, and instead dove into the resources and tutorials available. I came to the conclusion that for a first effort this map is ...flawed, and I would need to scrap it and start over to fix the inherent problems. while it won't work for the world map I was planing, it would work for a player handout/reference. which was the minimum I was willing to accept. while I'm not happy with it I realize it was my own fault for diving in having done minimal research. I learned a lot, accidentally discovered a style I like, and am looking forward to improving. before I close this out with the "finished" map here are some things I learned that other new cartographers might benefit from.

1 - if you're like me and you learn by just doing it, don't use the map you care about or, you have already done a bunch of worldbuilding for.

2 - gather a folder of example maps refer to them often then look at them some more.

3 - making a whole map is a daunting task, find a tutorial that focuses on a single feature (mountains, rivers, climate regions...) and follow along, there are a lot of tutorials with a lot of information. start small and build up to it.

4 - don't be discouraged when you inevitably have to start over either on one portion, or the entire map. your new and learning a new skill.

5 - don't be afraid to ask for help.

7 - last and I think most important. step back, take a break, and focus on something else for a bit.

so without further ado, I present my first ever map. Agoria

[BluePhoenix175]

It was driving me crazy looking at this map and knowing that I can do better now
so I started over, salvaging what I could.

what could I do to improve it?
I feel like it's missing things but I don't know what.

things I am thinking about doing
-scraping the volcanoes
-use different city markers
-do something with the title and banner
-I need to figure out what/how I want to do with the text, what I have now is salvaged from the previous iteration as a placeholder.
-lighten the color of the desert, right now it works well with everything else(i think) but it doesn't look like a desert

this is where it's at now
Agoria V3


should I start a new thread or is it ok to keep using this one?

[BluePhoenix175]

still trying things with the text. perhaps I'm just too picky but nothing I have tried looks good.

added icons, map key, compass rose, scale, shipping lanes, a couple of boats, and lightened the desert color.

[waldronate]

Your map is fairly dark in tone, you might want to try a dark halo (blurred stroke) behind light-colored text. You can standardize on one color for the contrast background behind all of the text. You can also pick a color that's actually underneath the text and more or less do a knockout background. Light haloes behind light text makes the text look blurry. If you really want light haloes and light text, use a black or dark stroke on the text to make the text appear crisp instead of blurry.

I would recommend considering a couple of the basics: what is the purpose of this map? do you like particular styles of existing maps? A map designed to communicate information very quickly needs to have carefully abstracted elements on the map, especially labels suited to the purpose of the map (knowing where the lettuce in Bilbo's garden in the Shire is can be useful, but it's not particularly useful to have a giant label like that on a geographic overview of western Middle Earth). Find a map you like. Study it. Ask questions about it. Try to make maps similar to it. Fail a lot. I mean a LOT. But keep going. Go until you get something that doesn't bother you too much.

And (to answer your previous question) it's your WIP thread. Feel free to use it as long as you want to.