My first (and second) maps ever... critique welcomed

[Seltsam1]

Hi all,

I just finished de-lurking in the "welcome" forum with the vague implication that I might put up my first two semi-finished products. So here they are!

They are both heavily based on darklingrisen's tutorial for Gimp http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ps-in-the-GIMP. I looked into the theory regarding mountain placement, but it was a lot to take in for a first try so instead I poked about on google maps and found coastline near Anchorage, AK that looked kinda like what I wanted so I used that as a basis.

The second map expands on that (sorry, don't remember the links for the other tutorials at this time; I'll go back through and try to add it later). It has more details of one of the regions. I had a hard time getting the labels legible on this one, so the result was one of usability over aesthetics.

Lastly, I've been playing around with aged paper effects (creating old paper/parchment tutorial by Rob A... link to come later). I'll tone it down for a usable map, but not sure the best way to do that (drop some of the marks, lighten stuff, some weird filter option?).

Suggestions are welcomed. I'd like to know what parts are the best and which parts need the most work (if you see the same problems in both maps, then definitely feel free to point it out).

Thanks all!

Seltsam