[WIP] The Shattered Kingdoms - Aeril

[Hai-Etlik]

Thank you for the critique as well, though I don't see how a river could flow up into the mountain (especially since there are only 2 or 3 that 'touch' a mountain on the map ). Do you have any suggestions why it appears that way, or tips how to solve that problem? I'd appreciate it.

I have multiple rivers starting at mountain springs (and some even start underground, which is kind of hard to indicate on a map of this scale)

When two rivers meet, the narrow angle is generally going to be facing uphill. It's not an air tight universal rule, but it's typical (and it makes sense as the two rivers will both be flowing downhill, which should be roughly the same direction). Your rivers are universally doing the opposite. That makes it look like your rivers are doing one of two things. Flowing uphill into the mountains, or splitting rather than merging, with all but one of the branches drying up. Neither of those makes any sense.

[Griph]

Thanks very much for the critique so far. I will rework the rivers, but I can barely find (and I am trying) any rivers matching the 'angle issue'. However I know the rivers seem to dry up randomly.

I'll try to solve the problem by flipping the image, maybe I'll notice more mistakes then. Also I will experiment with the mountains (maybe I'll get them to a nicer look).

Do you have any suggestions how to get a more realistic setup of rives. If you could just draw a few lines over my map I would be very thankfull - if not, I'll still try to fix it myself

Cheers,
Griph

[Hai-Etlik]

Thanks very much for the critique so far. I will rework the rivers, but I can barely find (and I am trying) any rivers matching the 'angle issue'. However I know the rivers seem to dry up randomly.

I'll try to solve the problem by flipping the image, maybe I'll notice more mistakes then. Also I will experiment with the mountains (maybe I'll get them to a nicer look).

Do you have any suggestions how to get a more realistic setup of rives. If you could just draw a few lines over my map I would be very thankfull - if not, I'll still try to fix it myself

Think of a river system as like a tree. The branches should be up hill, the trunk should be in the ocean. The way you have drawn them has the trunk is in the mountains, and the branches are in the lowlands, with most not connecting to the ocean at all.

Now there are a few rivers that just dry up rather than reaching another body of water, but this is rare and only happens in arid climates. Occasionally a salt lake will fill the role of an ocean, but this is again mostly an arid climate occurrence, and usually far inland or associated with mountains.

It's also rather hard to actually SEE the rivers in places, particularly in the north.

[Griph]

Nice, very Game-of-Thronesy. The mountains are an ickle bit sharp looking for my liking but I guess that's the look you're going for.

Thank you. Game of Thrones? Well, it was one of my inspirations to start the setting, but mainly the political inspiration. I thought people would start compaining about it being a Skyrim ripoff, since I started making this map around the time the game was released.
So ture, the map has been dormant for a while now, until I uploaded it here.

The branches should be up hill, the trunk should be in the ocean.

Thanks a lot! That Kind of opened my eyes, I alway thought it would be the other way round. Yes. even after looking at real atlas maps. >_>

It's also rather hard to actually SEE the rivers in places, particularly in the north.

That is partially intended, as I wanted them to be frozen or hidden under a layer of ice and snow. But I know that even the ones that are obviously blue are still barely visible. I need to fix that too.

Well, thanks for all the help, expect another upload soon!

To-Do-List:

• Rework Rivers completely
• Fix River Visibility (North)
• Fan Out Mountains

Cheers,
Griph

[Hai-Etlik]

That is partially intended, as I wanted them to be frozen or hidden under a layer of ice and snow. But I know that even the ones that are obviously blue are still barely visible. I need to fix that too.

Well, that's a big part of the difference between a map and a picture. Having the rivers hidden might make perfect sense in a picture, but on a map, they are either important enough to be there, and so should be clearly visible and recognizable, or they aren't important, and shouldn't be there at all.