Isle of Crest

[Samp]

Being a student, I am half the time stressed out by the sheer amount of work I am issued, and with the end-of-year examinations coming right around the corner, I find myself needing an escape from reality and ways to 'de-stress', so after having been a site lurker for a few long months, I've finally (after stealing a few hours every once in a while) managed to come up with my second map. Here's the Isle of Crest

I am not too satisfied about the placement of the text themselves as they are admittedly really messy. I should probably revise the paragraphs too Meanwhile, what was intended to be a delta didn't work out too well, either. (To the map west)
Reviews and criticism will be appreciated!



//It turns out the file size was too large to be uploaded, so I have lowered the quality to 90% and converted it to a JPEG. Apparently that shrunk the size by up to 7 times >_>//

[arsheesh]

That's a really interesting choice for a sea texture; up close it reminds me a little of Van Gogh swirls. The shape of the island looks nice, and the captions are fun. Good job man.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Lukc]

I think it looks great - the textures are unusual but effective.

But I'd give a little colour-blind comment again. I can hardly make out the red texts Red texts on brownish-greenish backgrounds (and vice versa) are hell for colour-blind people, so you may end up with people not seeing what you want them to see.

[Hai-Etlik]

Yeah, very poor contrast and readability. Just about everything on the map is of medium intensity and high saturation. It's hard to read even with normal colour vision.

"Here lies the Great hills of sand. Wander in not, for many never return."

You've got a plurality agreement problem, some odd capitalization, and the language is just a bit ungainly in places. You might try something more like:

"Here stand The Great Hills of Sand. Those who brave them seldom return."

[cantab]

I dunno, I quite like the "Wander in not, for many never return".

I also like the colours, of everything except the red text. The map itself is to me quite clear, though the forests look 'sunken'. And, as mentioned, the Van Gogh style sea is good.

[jbgibson]

That's a fun little map - I like the 'narrative notes'. The swirly water is a neat touch. Ditto the above comments on legibility - the red gets lost way too easily. Yeah, the delta is kind of a fail - there's not enough river upstream to gather a lot of sediments to settle out when the river meets the sea. A delta isn't so much what can happen when a river nears the shore, as it is what happens to the dropped mud and silt when the water slows upon entering the ocean. So they tend to stick out, not extend in. It would work fine to break those distributaries free and make several smaller streams separately entering the ocean; maybe erase others altogether.

You might could keep the same effect you have going with the ocean by lightening and desaturating it some - your text blocks would suddenly work better. I like the overall palette - nice work.