Map of the Twin Kingdoms of Aran and Ilan - Handdrawn

[Caenwyr]

Thanks for your critique people, this is helping me a lot! There was only one remark I didn't really understand:

The only bad thing I have to say about your map is that some mountains fade into the water.

Do you mean the mountains at the northwestern edge of the inland sea, Azelor? The idea was for those mountains to look as though they were rising up from the water, with almost no flatland between the mountains and the sea. A bit like the Norwegian fjords, for example. If you know of a better way to represent that, I'm all ears!

In the meantime I'd like to present a fairly small update of my map. Changes since the last version:

• removed the colour of principality labels (haven't changed the typeface since I kinda like it, even though it does indeed look less "old" than the Monotype Corsiva I used for the city names), and did away with the bevel;
• Added a slight coloration to each of the principalities, so the borders look less jarring and the territories are visually linked together. Is this effect better or worse than the previous one?
• Drew in the rest of the forests. Turns out Carthorn is the woodstock of the eastern kingdom (Araniell). I might have to cut back on the forest a bit in Barann and Cilydd, since those two principalities (and especially the latter) are considered to be the granary of Aran;
• did some minor corrections to the roads.

Up next:

• Kingdom labels (only two, so that should be easy... though I'll probably have to move around quite a few city and principality labels so they don't overlap);
• mountain labels (I hate those. Anything that overlaps my mountains, actually. I put so much work in them, I want them to be shown in full glory!);
• sea labels;
• maybe a sketch of the most important sea routes (if that doesn't mess up the balance of the map);
• a compass rose;
• maybe some rhumb lines thrown in for good measure;
• a scale (finally!!);
• a legend (with a list of notable locations from the accompanying novel);
• a list of shields of the 11 principalities and the two kingdoms (that in particular will take a LOT of work);
• A more ornamental frame;
• etc etc etc...

[Azélor]

Thanks for your critique people, this is helping me a lot! There was only one remark I didn't really understand:

Do you mean the mountains at the northwestern edge of the inland sea, Azelor? The idea was for those mountains to look as though they were rising up from the water, with almost no flatland between the mountains and the sea. A bit like the Norwegian fjords, for example. If you know of a better way to represent that, I'm all ears!

Sadly, no Well, it's not that bad anyway.