Jhadalaia

This started out as a second attempt at my Evelakaia map, but that soon turned into trying to include the surrounding areas. I tried to get a basic sketch of the surrounding areas but finally decided just to do the whole continent. So behold, Jhadalaia, the continent that has only recently been added to the archives of the Imperial Zephyrn Cartographic Guild.

In the native tongue Jhadalaia translates to the Grand Old Land and the continent itself is only slightly larger than the North American Continent. Things look kinda small on this map because i had to reduce it's size in order to post it here.

For this map I would like to extend thanks to Ascension, Pasis, Terminal and Tear, all of whom wrote great tuts that help to create this map. I've pretty much done everything i need to do for this map but i want you guys to get a look and tell me what might be off before i declare it done. I know there are no rivers because at this scale they wouldn't be visible. I'm also working on a winter version of this map, to be posted later once i figure how much i need to do.

-D-

I like it, my only little 'nitpick' is that the shadows on the mountains seem 'a bit heavy'.

You might consider softening them some *shrugs*

Can't believe this file actually loaded at full size, well, close enough to full size.

I went back and faded the mountain shadows a bit and they do look a bit better. I also changed the colour of the text. In particular I want to know what people think of the oceans, I came upon this look by accident and I quite like it.

-D-

That is a nice looking map! I have a question on the scale, however.

I speculate that this is near a north pole, and the "stretch" of the landmass at the top is due to the distortion, and this is a portion of an equi-rectangular map (lat and long straight lines) If that is the case, at what latitude is the provided scale correct?

[EDIT: by the way, do you want this moved to the finished maps forum?]

-Rob A>

I like the oceans, and the mountains are much better now. However, there are a few spots where the smaller white text is a bit difficult to read. That being said, it could just be my eyes - see what others think before making any changes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RobA

... I have a question on the scale, however.

I speculate that this is near a north pole, and the "stretch" of the landmass at the top is due to the distortion, and this is a portion of an equi-rectangular map (lat and long straight lines) If that is the case, at what latitude is the provided scale correct? ...

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Pretty much any projection has that problem. It is possible to do an equidistant projection between up to two points and all other points on the map, but not a generally correct-scaled map. Assuming the planet is spherical. This is fantasy cartography after all.

On a Plate Caree map, scale will be correct N/S and along the equator. Now when it comes to the question of what projection is being used and where exactly the equator is, that's a problem most maps on this site fail to address. Including almost all of mine. Seems a little hard on LWD to isolate him out for criticism.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by su_liam

Pretty much any projection has that problem. It is possible to do an equidistant projection between up to two points and all other points on the map, but not a generally correct-scaled map. Assuming the planet is spherical. This is fantasy cartography after all.

On a Plate Caree map, scale will be correct N/S and along the equator. Now when it comes to the question of what projection is being used and where exactly the equator is, that's a problem most maps on this site fail to address. Including almost all of mine. Seems a little hard on LWD to isolate him out for criticism.

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It wasn't intended as a criticism.

Many people here criticize maps that don't have a scale... but as you so correctly state, most large scale/world maps don't address this well. The only reason it jumped out at me is that the map (correctly IMOO) has the type of distortion I would expect to see (where most do not, and when mapped to a sphere has a noticeable pinched look).

Because of this I was wondering where the scale is accurate....may be more as a question for guidance, as I don't really have a good answer.

-Rob A>

All I have to add is that despite the scale I think you should put rivers and lakes in...give the eye just a little bit more to look at. Rivers are almost never drawn properly to scale anyways so fudging them towards being too big is fine I think. But that's not a real big issue. The main thing that I see as suspect is that the mountains are single long strands...there's no clumping, no bunching, no folding, and few spurs. The execution of style on the mountains looks fine but the overall shape seems off. Colors seem nice and I look forward to seeing towns and labels.

Yeah I know I should add rivers but i was trying to get a real sense of scale, most maps of continents i've seen don't bother with rivers so neither did I. Also you guys had struck the two other problems that have been givng me head aches; mountains and scale. The scale will have to go because it does become inaccurate the further you go north, and the mountains do look like giant worms instead of mountains. The problem with this style is that it isn't suited to be used at such a large scale and when tried as such problems do arise.

And so I'm discontuing this map, I went too big too fast. I'm scaling down to large maps but of smaller regional areas, some no bigger than a kingdom. By mapping out the whole continent I ruined the sense of the continent being unexplored and shrouded in mystery which i was going for, also I place several features in wrong areas. I apologise for wasting your guy's time.

-D-

No time wasted on my part.

If you got anything out of working on it (and/or from our C&C), then it was time well spent.