Byakko

[groove]

Hello,
I'm a newcomer here and I have to say I really respect what you are doing here, the detail and attention to the details in your maps is exceptional. Tutorials are great too.
I'm a geographer myself, and my day job is lidar data management in surveying company, but I enjoy making maps in my free time, as for fantasy maps this is my first attempt, so be gentle, but at the same time pretty strict. The map is meant for a book, the outlines and positioning is not mine. There are a lot of geographical inaccuracies, I might persuade the contractor to change some things. At this point this fantasy mapmaking is the most fun I've had working in a while. I used a lot of your tutorials here, to many to list, I hope that's ok.
Anyhow, here it is:
Fantasy_crop.jpg


What will be improved/added:
swamp (a big problem for now)
River texturing
Ice cover in the top peninsula
Labels

C&C welcomed.

[Larb]

One of the things that sticks out most for me is the drop shadow you seem to have on the land masses - it makes them look like they are floating a bit. It would probably look better replaced with an outer glow (set to multiple and a dark colour) or a subtle bevel and emboss.

[groove]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, the drop shadow kind of contradict the realistic nature of the map, but it's something the contractors wants. Will play around with the coastline.

[Vellum]

groove glad you enjoyed and used the tutorials, that's why the generous folks here but em up I think you need to address the lakes and rivers a bit more. The lakes have the appearance of "brush blobs", it would help if you went back and added a tad more irregularity to the their outlines. As a geographer you need to convince your client to correct the river issues (I'll let the river police hand out the summons LOL) so they are more in line with real world conditions. As torstan says, you need an archipelago I think this would help break up the circular layout a bit. This might come off the lower left of the bottom continent? All in all a very good start, have a little rep for your effort.

[groove]

Well the first map turned out not quite the way I wanted. So I wanted to try anew.
For the first baby steps I thought I take something known and real, to get a better idea of the whole fantasy mapmaking principle. I took my country as an inspiration and I'll try to give it a fantasy look.

latvia.jpg

[Greason Wolfe]

I really liked the coloring of the first map, though adding in a bit of brown to the mountain areas might make them stand out a bit better. Also saw a few areas where the labeling might have been blotted out by the land masses. The only other thing I saw was a couple areas of the coast that looked a bit too straight, west of the Wolf Den Forest and Autumn Ridge.

The second map is looking pretty cool so far. In looking at it though, there is that one river that stretches from one coast, through mountains, to the other coast. Not sure what the river police will have to say about that, but that might be a great point to create a strait by separating that chunk of land from the main land mass and shaking up the edges of the "river" a bit more. Just a thought.

All in all, great work so far, and welcome to the guild. I don't have much to give out, but here's a bit of rep for posting maps right out of the blocks.

GW