First Map. (everything hand drawn) Looking for constructive critism and comments!

[Eddie Nathaniel Torres]

Hi Everyone,

Here is the first map I've drawn. It is a fantasy map of a single continent, that is a part of a bigger world that has yet to be drawn.

I discovered Cartographer's Guild after the map was finished, so I approached it using things like historical maps and LOTR as references. Since I've discovered the guild, I've been taking notes on the tips and tricks you all graciously share, as well as admiring all of your amazing works. It would be much appreciated if you can spare a moment of your time to criticize this piece.




Thank you!

[kacey]

Very nice first try! I like the cliffs you've drawn around the coast, and the mountains look pretty good, tho some of them are black, and some of them are grey so they look a little unfinished to me. Something I have to nit pick about is you're city icons, they look alright in you're key, nice, and sharp, but on the map itself they are a little fuzzy. I love the background colour, and the shape of the land mass, but for me it is unfinished... I'd love to see you develop this more, and maybe add city names, have you thought about posting a work in progress thread in the regional/world mapping section of the forum? If so I think you'd get allot of useful advice there, and get this fleshed out a little more.

I look forward to seeing more from you, if this is you're first map then you're definitely on the right track.

[ThomasR]

Very nice but I guess you should post it at had the resolution to hide some little imperfections (the texture you used for example is a little blurry zoomed in) and maybe add some noise to the labels and reposition them so that they do not overlap the coastline. Beside this, a really promising start, totally rep-worthy !

[Farland]

I really like it. I think the font maybe needs to look hand drawn as well.

[arsheesh]

First off, congrats for finishing your first map Eddie, it is indeed an accomplishment.

OK, the good. The line-work really is pretty good for someone just staring out. Everything is pretty clear and readable, and I like the shading along the trees (though I'd work on keeping the direction of lighting consistent throughout the map - just looking at the hills and mountains its hard to tell where the light is coming from).

The bad. Those icons are really blurry and contrast with the crispness of your line-work. Also, the background texture really isn't doing your map any favors. It's WAY too blurry, so much so that it distracts away from the map itself. Next time try working with a better texture.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Kellerica]

I can really only echo what others have said already - from where I'm standing, I'd guess you're an excellent drawer, but are not that familiar with digital software yet.

The hand-drawn stuff looks really fantastic. I'd maybe go with a touch smaller trees when working with a style like this though (but then again, I fully admit that I'm practically never 100% okay with any kind of trees when it comes to hand-drawn maps like this, they tend to look weird to me on some level no matter what, so that could really be just me).

As others have pointed out, the texture is pretty bad, it looks really blurry even when zoomed out. Check out this dA page of a fellow Guild member: http://coyotemax.deviantart.com/gall...9830/Resources His textures are free to use and they are really top-notch. Try combining several with different layer blending styles and see what you can come up with.

The font choice is another thing that doesn't look to good... Like Farland said, maybe try something that has more of a hand-drawn feel to it. Dafont.com for instance does hold a pretty great collection of free fonts - I'm sure you'll find something you like. If you're working with Photoshop, try to familiarize yourself with layer styles when working with labels; a very light Outer Glow for instance can be a good way to make your labels stand out a little better from the backround.

All in all, if I were you I'd look over some of the mapping tutorials here on the Guild: https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ead.php?t=4987 Even if you don't fancy the particular style of map that they are focusing on, they do a great job of introducing you to a number of very useful functions the software has. For myself I can safely say that anything I know of Photoshop I've learnt from these tutorials.

Sorry if that got a little long... Anywho, welcome to the Guild and happy mapping - you're off to a great start. I hope to see more from you!

[ChickPea]

Firstly, welcome to the guild and congrats for sharing a map in your first post!

I haven't much to add on top of what everyone else has said. Mostly, I'd suggest trying for consistency throughout your work. For example, as mentioned above, don't mix black & grey lines. Fine to use different colours for shading obviously, but keep your linework consistent. Also, try to keep the overall style consistent too. You have a hand-drawn style on an aged parchment, but you also have a font and legend box with crisp, sharp lines. These two styles together are jarring. You can 'distress' lines to make it look like they bleed into the paper, and a more calligraphic-style font would blend better.

Overall, I think this is a great first attempt, but I also think it's got potential to be fantastic. If you'd like to work on it some more, we can move this thread into the Work-in-Porgress folder and help you improve it. Of course, I can also understand if you'd like to take lessons learned onto your next map. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.