Midgard, a fantasy state.

Long time since I registered here and made my introduction post. Allot further on my map project now. Just showing it for now, I'll come up with more specific questions later (like how to get the glacier structure a bit more realistic).
Since it's a WIP its still in PSD format (so you can play with the layers because there is no legend yet):
http://www.2shared.com/photo/srANa6j..._Midgard8.html

JPG version:
http://www.2shared.com/photo/FBOZN0S..._Midgard8.html

Info about the area I am trying to picture:
http://www.heimr.nl/in_character/lor...nts_in_midgard
http://www.heimr.nl/in_character/lore/places_in_midgard

Crude legend:
Mountains:
Black = mountains
Red lines in mountains = height-lines
White spots on mountaintops = eternal snow line

Fields:
Blue lines = rivers
Red lines = main roads
Dark red lines = secondary roads
Light green, darker green, dark green = the tree large forests and their magical rivers magical water (see: anatomy of a Midgardian forest for a description of the layers)
light green = small "tamed" forests.
Green, dark green, brown = hill area's and their respective height.

Settlements
Large black dots = cities
Small red dots = villages
purple spots = killing fields (explained at the end of this page: http://www.heimr.nl/in_character/lore/about_the_war)
Blue dots at the border = sclera (A form of military settlement/ border patrol)
Large blue dots = military settlements (forts)

It think thats it. If you open the photoshop file though you can look at the reason the village was placed in that place (as in: is this mainly a hunting village or mainly a woodcutting village or did they settle here because it is a holy place?)

The size of Midgard is about the size and general shape of Spain.

Edit: Added the JPG map as an attachment and added a crude (in post) legend.

Hi Shadow, if you wan't critique I'll suggest saving as jpg and uploading that. Not every user have photoshop and even those who has often don't want to spend time downloading first and booting photoshop just to give critique :) ...you can always add the photoshop file as an alternative to those who wants to see how you made stuff :)

Sure, thank you for the tip:
http://www.2shared.com/photo/FBOZN0S..._Midgard8.html

One more thing. I am not going for a cool looking map (we have artists in our community to handle that once it's finished.) this is a schematic and (hopefully) realistic picture of this area.

PS. thank you for the quick response.

that was fast - but I'd like to give you one more tip :)
Instead of using an off-site service - press "go advanced" and use the uploader here on the guild. That way if your hosting site should ever dissapear or be down, the forum will still have access to your maps. In addition to that, the system will automatically make a thumb of your map :)
And I've looked at your map and you got a good start, if you throw in some city/etc names and perhaps a legend it will help understanding what we see :)

Added a crude legend in the main post. I don't have time to do it in the map itself because I should be working now actually. ;)

The size of Midgard is about the size and general shape of Spain.

My main concern is that I didn't get the mountains right. The forests are on the correct (up-wind) side of the mountains but I start the rivers at the eternal snow line... while in reality it forms more of a glacier and actually melts lower than the snow line. At this point it's really hard to determine where the mountain paths would realisticly be... I think they would be parallel to the glaciers and zigzagging from the rivers out of the value towards the height-line before veering of to whatever village or mountain torp it was heading. I hope I am making sense.

Sorry, it doesn't look anything like me!

For the benefit of the artists who will eventually be creating the eye candy, you may want to put the legend on the image itself, so they won't have to switch between two documents to interpret it. And use actual samples of the colors in that legend, so it's easy to know which "light green" you mean for the forests.

There are two cities in the lower third of the map that probably should be connected by a road cutting through the forest. I don't think it is very likely that someone would want to travel straight south, then along that bending road back northward to arrive at a city at the same latitude where they started. Cutting straight through would be at least 1/3 shorter. Also, don't forget that there would probably be well-maintained roads to the border forts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Midgardsormr

Sorry, it doesn't look anything like me!

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Doh! Took a while before I got that... now I feel stupid. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Midgardsormr

For the benefit of the artists who will eventually be creating the eye candy, you may want to put the legend on the image itself, so they won't have to switch between two documents to interpret it. And use actual samples of the colors in that legend, so it's easy to know which "light green" you mean for the forests.

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Yes that is the eventual plan.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Midgardsormr

There are two cities in the lower third of the map that probably should be connected by a road cutting through the forest. I don't think it is very likely that someone would want to travel straight south, then along that bending road back northward to arrive at a city at the same latitude where they started. Cutting straight through would be at least 1/3 shorter. Also, don't forget that there would probably be well-maintained roads to the border forts.

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I am not showing all the roads, that would be madness (maybe a project for once it is finished though.). But you are right, there would probably be an important road connecting those two cities. The problem is it would go trough the center of the forest (like it does with the forest on the right). And the forest in Midgard fights back when attacked in such a fashion. So it would probably take another bloody war Midgard isn't waiting for to get a road trough that forest. The first war (trough the forest on the right) really wasn't worth the trouble according to the historians of Midgard. ;)

It will make for a cool story/adventure though. So when the players finally get to it, their will probably be a road there in the future. ;)

Aha! See, when I first saw the arrangement I thought maybe the forest was dangerous, but you had that other road, so I figured maybe it was just an oversight. That makes a lot of sense now.

Yes, detailing every road would be far too much detail, particularly at this stage. I mentioned roads to the forts, though, because they'd be quite important from a military viewpoint. And since military logistics corps are the ones most likely to create an extensive and well-designed road network, those military roads would, in my opinion, be the ones most likely to be shown on a map.

But the ultimate use of the map should, of course, dictate what exactly it shows, so don't to too influenced by my outsider's opinion.

No, that's actually a good point. I'll run it past our military expert. Secondary roads trough Midgard are actually very large high quality toll roads build for merchant charts and paddle-back horses. But militairy roads would not be payed for with toll. We will probably add another layer of military roads to the final version.

Is there anyone who could give me a few pointers on how to get glaciers to rivers right? At this point my method for drawing the claciers will be:
1. Determine in between which height lines I will draw claciers and in between wich height lines I don't based on the wind direction (and thus steepness of the mountainside)
2. Draw claciers starting as thick as the snowline, quickly shrinking to about 1/3 of the smallest width between the two heightlines and from twice to four and rarely five times the length of the peak to the snow line.
3. Draw the claciers gracefully flowing and curving following the height lines parallel.

Any more pointers? Going to do this next week sometime.

I assume by 'Height Line' you mean 'Contours' (or 'Isohypses' if you want to get really really precise in your nomenclature. It's from the Greek for 'Same Height'.)

There are other ways to indicate elevation with lines such as Hachuring, but they are less common on modern maps.