First map in years!

[Nian]

Hello. I used to visit this forum quite often few years ago. I made a few maps back then. recently I started to feel that i really have to come back and finished 1 map which i wanted to do for many years. And here it is. After many hours of work. I'm not a pro so I used a lot of brushes and pictures I found with google. I also forgot a lot about photoshop so please be gentle with me =P I know it could have been done much better but I am very happy with the result nonetheless.
I used many pictures and brushes I downloaded many years ago and I don't know who made them so if you see that I used some of your work please tell me. I made this map only for my pleasure and I won't use it anywhere.
Map is inspired by the map from a game Muramasa Demon Blade and Japanese hiragana/Kanji which are used as names are totally random and don't mean anything. Hah It's good to be back ^^


Edit. now when i look at it maybe I should try to make some kind of border for it.

Final Edit?
Finished.
finished.jpg

[leen]

very nice one! i love the style, especially the clouds and the forests are really neat!
Two things that bothered me though: the hills in the far background look like they're transparent...
Then the water: all the hills are a bit different form one another, but the waves all are exactly the same, so maybe give some more variations in the water, or make the waves smaller. the color of the water is also a bit too green in my opinion.
I really like the japanese feeling, the mountains are just like in the old japanese/chinese paintings!
Cheers

[Nian]

I was thinking a lot about water and I couldn;t decide how to do it. I have a few additional wave patterns so I will try to add those =]
Thank you for your contribution. I will try to improve the color too but as i said I'm not a pro so I might not succeed =p

New version =]
finished.jpg

[MeFanch]

Have to admit I'm also a fan.

[Larb]

I really love the style of this. I prefer the second version with slightly few water waves myself.

[Azélor]

I love this style of map. In fact I was thinking about doing something like that.

I just want to warn you that these are not japanese hiragana/katakana but chinese symbols. I know that the japanese system uses these too, but usually they don't use them the same way. My chinese is far better than my japanese, so I can't tell if you made a mistake.

[Coriolis]

Good:
+I like the way you use mist and smoke in the hills. It's a great way to give the land some character. It's particularly effective with the trees.
+It has a distinctly classical Japanese style (from my American perspective, anyway), and its theme suggests an old Samurai story. You picked your objects and brushstrokes well.
+The use of different textures in the hills make these regions particularly interesting to look at. It's a subtle, but powerful effect.
+I like the cloud shadows across the map.

Areas for improvement:
-The water and mountains aren't as well-developed as the hills. Consider injecting some more subtle variations and effects in these parts.
-The shoreline could be better-defined.
-The top edge is good on the right ('cause I love those hills), but everywhere else, this edge seems a bit unfinished.

[Nian]

I don't know how to remove thumbnails. I updated my 1st post with final version.

Thank you all for kind words and advices ^^

[Sapiento]

I love this map!

[Ilunar]

This looks cool. I like the mix of styles and sources.