Thread: Semi-Archaic World Map - OPEN FOR CRITIQUE

Originally Posted by RiskBreaker

How can I improve it!?????

Welcome, Riskbreaker!

The question is: What is it, that you want your map to show?
It is obvious that this is a political map due to the different colors you used for the countries (?).

On what do you focus? The landmass itself, countries, political structures, should it illustrate a certain background story?

There is a vast amount of things you could add depending on the purpose.
Somewhere here is a quite good list made by Ascension called something like "Things to put on a map".
Maybe you should have glance on this piece ;-)

>Moe

(EDIT: I found it. Here it is, thanks to Ascension)

The only thing I can say. (Besdies what Moe said)
Is like a border.. Around the borders of country's or such. If that makes sense.

Not sure what you want, but I love the colour palette you're using.

I agree with ravells, great color palette for the landmasses and seas

As for advice, at a casual glance I had a hard time reading the text because of the color

@RE: Moe
- Thank you for recommending the list, I've read through it and learned quite alot. I will continue to explore this forum for more ideas and tricks on cartography. As for the story behind the map, there is no story. This map is just a product of many tutorials I followed through on youtube. Will work on the story though.

@RE: eViLe_eAgLe
- That's a great idea, I guess I could do so. I'll get that rendered in a bit.

@RE: ravells
- Thanks ravells, I was going for an archaic look but I guess the colours still work. I forgot to mention this, but I was looking for some critique on the visuals. ie. eViLe_eAgLe pointed out that there should have been borders added or something like the colour of Ventus is a little too light and needs to be darker etc.

@RE: SkinnyKazoo
- Thank you as well SkinnyKazoo, Have you tried the direct link? It leads to the original size of the map. In this enlarged version it should be easier to read the text. I use a 21 inch LCD Moniter and I made sure that the text was legible.

This is a very modern look - almost cyberpunk, not archaic at all! The lines and the colours are too flat and clean to be archaic. If you want an archaic look, then I would suggest that you use a colour palette which roughly corresponds to old paints and then grunge it up by overlaying a parchment / distressed texture on top.

Ah my bad on the text...didn't see the direct link.

Great work though