[WIP] Sandrina - My first real attempt in CC3.
Hello! I just recently joined, and I also just recently purchased CC3 and a couple of ProFantasy's add-ons. I've gone through a light tutorial as well as read up on some other very basic tips, and I've been able to start working on a map.
This map is for a Pathfinder campaign I'm running. I had a previous version that was just a basic hand-drawn sketch, so this is the first attempt at a higher quality map. It's not finished, and I already have some things I want to edit (e.g., the coloring under the northern foresty areas is way too light in my opinion) but I'd like to get some feedback. At this point, I'm running into the issue of trying to balance space and objects. I want to fill the map enough to have it be appealing, but I don't want to cram something into every available space. A lot of the southern area has been left alone for this reason. I kind of wanted to wait til I hear some constructive criticism.The rivers to the south are also bothering me. I wanted more of a network, instead of just one river, but... Something feels off and I can't put a finger on it.
The city/town symbols are varied intentionally. Most fit the same theme, but a couple to the south and again to the southwest are different to represent cultural and design differences. It's kind of a city-state area, so despite the small size, it contains a bit of diversity.
Anyway, just to through it out there, I'm going more for a representation feel instead of a realistic look, but I don't want to use that as a crutch or an excuse. I still want things to belong and make sense.
If you want to reshape those rivers, you can have them anastomose, if they're on a flat enough plain.
I think your city symbols might be a little too big for the map.
Attached is a copy that I scribbled all over; hope the comments are useful.
Untitled.png
Thanks for the quick feedback.I'll fidget with the city symbols and see what comes out. The comments are definitely useful and it gives me some direction to go in. In terms of the Marita question, it's a really large city on the south side but there's a keep and large town on the north side to help provide control over the bay.
What would you suggest for creating a localized marsh? Would that anastomose style work for that? I've been to bayous before but that's so different from seeing and understanding what's happening from an aerial view.
New comment (edit): I just noticed the part where you mentioned that a river was flowing up the hills. I intended for it to be coming down out of the hills (near Telso), so if for some reason that doesn't look to be the case, can you explain why? I don't think I'm seeing what you're seeing.
Last edited by Joshua; 03-21-2012 at 11:37 PM.
OK, so: It looked like the river near Telso was going up into the hills from the lake and then down the other side of the hills. Is the lake supposed to be at high elevation as well? If so I totally misunderstood the map.
I'd name the city across from Marita with a second name. Think San Francisco/Oakland. I suspect this would happen naturally.
Here are some great views of salt marshes from above, and you can also look at marshy places on Google Maps in satellite view for reference (try 31.361846,-81.466026).
Ahh, I see exactly what you're saying about the river, now. I didn't mean for it to be the same river traveling through the hills, but two separate rivers. But I can definitely see how it could look like that to a viewer. The lake is supposed to be down in elevation, with that shorter river feeding it. I'll tinker to make it clear.
The town north of the bay is simply referred to as "Marita Keep" since that's pretty much the original structure there, but a town eventually grew around it. It's governed by the same politics (and politicians) and it mostly just an extension of the southern city. I didn't put "Marita Keep" on the map because it's so close in name and because I didn't want to clutter the map, and because of its "extension" nature... Does that fly? They're not separate entities like Frisco/Oakland, but I guess it could also be renamed as a fantasy-eqsue suburb if it needs it.
Thanks for the marsh views!
Welcome to the Guild! Have some rep for your first WIP thread, it's looking pretty good so far!
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
My finished maps | My deviantART gallery
My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
Well, thank you!Originally Posted by Gidde
Well, here's the newest update. I tinkered with the rivers some more and changed some of the inking effects. Filled in more of the map, to the point where I think I'm happy with the amount of fill. I tried messing with the sizing of the city symbols but I'm just not happy with them smaller because a lot of the detail is lost. So instead, I might try changing the city symbol set to something else and see how that looks at a smaller size. I still need to mess with the rivers to the west, since they're splitting...
But the river around Lyndale Keep is supposed to be split in a manner of speaking. It surrounds the town, but it was artificially adapted to do that for defensive and irrigation purposes. I'm not sure how to show that yet. I want to draw it differently so that it looks a bit more distinctly manufactured, but I don't want it to look like "sloppy cartography" if that makes sense.Suggestions welcome!
The area around the ruins are supposed to be swampy/bayou/wetlands-ish. It's a first attempt at that, so suggestions definitely welcome for that too.
Latest WIP as of 3/26/12.
Sandrina (032612).jpg
Last edited by Joshua; 03-26-2012 at 11:25 PM.
Oh whoops. I was supposed to be keeping up with this thread.
I like the modifications!
The river that goes to the point south of Danwyn, though, bugs me. A river either is eroding away the land and therefore meets the ocean in a cut-in part of the coast (think the Sacramento/San Joaquin flowing out into San Francisco Bay), or it's depositing sediment and therefore ends in a round delta (think the Mississippi). Going out to a pointy spot like that really doesn't happen. Now, the topography there is low enough that you could reshape that point into a round lobe and make it swampier and full of wiggly splitting streams, and then Danwyn would be in a New Orleans type environment. That might look cool. Otherwise you should just have that river flowing to somewhere -- anywhere! -- that is not the outer tip of that peninsula.
With regards to Lyndale Keep, you could make it look more artificial, maybe? Like, have the river split into a clearly unnatural shape just before the Lyndale city walls.
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