The Arconian Peninsula

[Diamond]

I'm putting my other map work on hold for a while so I can play with this. Those mountain & tree symbols that Vandy scanned from old maps are just fantastic, and I had to find an excuse to use them.

So this is a Italian-esque peninsula on the world of Terramunda, the setting for a book I'm in the planning stages of writing. A lot of the names will be recycled from my other maps (I tend to do that a lot). There's going to be scattered republics, duchies, counties etc on the peninsula itself, with a couple of large pseudo-French nations in the north. The jut of land sticking up from the south is the tip of the Ashkarene Empire, the baddies of the story.

What I'm going for here is a plain look, but with a lot of detail, if that makes sense. I'm not going to use natural looking features; instead, everything's going to be icons. And with StarRaven's symbol set working now, I finally will have some good city/town icons. I'm going for minimal use of color here; the most I'll have will probably be a faint stroke around the city icons and the text. I plan to overlay everything with a sepia/parchment-y filter.

Here's where I am so far; I'm especially happy with the way the rivers look.

[Ghostman]

Your rivers look otherwise good, but they do not taper at all. The tributaries appear narrower but the main river courses are wide all the way from where they begin. It would give a more natural appearance to have your rivers start narrow and gradually gain width as more tributaries join them along the way.

[Gandwarf]

It's certainly a good start. No river violations that I can see
I do agree with Ghostman concerning the tapering, but it doesn't bother me.

[Eilathen]

Very nice. I really like those mountains!

And now for the obligatory question: Is there a worldmap you can show us? I'd like to see Terramunda in all its glory

[Steel General]

Great start! Looking forward to seeing more.

[Diamond]

Your rivers look otherwise good, but they do not taper at all. The tributaries appear narrower but the main river courses are wide all the way from where they begin. It would give a more natural appearance to have your rivers start narrow and gradually gain width as more tributaries join them along the way.

That's a good point; I hadn't even thought of that. Alrighty then, I'll redo 'em a bit tonight.

Very nice. I really like those mountains!

And now for the obligatory question: Is there a worldmap you can show us? I'd like to see Terramunda in all its glory

No world map yet, thought I know how everything is laid out. I suppose I can throw together a smallish rough map though.

[msa]

I really like the shape of the landmass in this map, and the way you scaled the map to encompass it. I would have never thought to make such a tall, skinny map but I really like the way it looks.

[cereth]

Very nice start. I love those mountains and the landmass seems very organic and realistic. I agree with the previous comments regarding the rivers. Not sure about the "cloud" texture in the water, but it might look cool when everything else gets added.

[Diamond]

Thanks for all the compliments and suggestions, guys. I really appreciate the warm welcome. I'm one of those dudes who doesn't often join new forums once I've found one I really like, so I'm glad I can 'branch out' here too.

Not sure about the "cloud" texture in the water, but it might look cool when everything else gets added.

That's my hope. Everything is going to have a sepia-parchment look overlaid on it, so hopefully that'll bring everything together a little more cohesively.

I've decided to use 'blobs' (for lack of a better term) for forests, with a light pattern overlaid on them. I tried actual tree icons, but it quickly made the map far, far too cluttered, and it was impossible to see the rivers clearly. Also tapered the river heads.

I decided to go with a bit more traditional city icon too; the big ones are very large cities (100K+ populations); the smaller ones represent lesser cities.

[Diamond]

I really like the shape of the landmass in this map, and the way you scaled the map to encompass it. I would have never thought to make such a tall, skinny map but I really like the way it looks.

Thanks, man. I did the same thing on this map as well, thought it turned out pretty decent.