World Map of Veriel

[BookOwl]

vorropohaiah and Max: Yeah, I tried it with the noise and it didn't look that great. I've changed the color to white and I think it looks much better now.

Gold: Thanks


Update! I've added those grunge effects to the long/lat numbers, the black lines on the orange border and the mountains. I'm also working on adding more countries in Aethos, Anza and Kwe'aela. I think I've got all the borders on there and now I'm just getting the names.

[Christopher Johnstone]

That's got some wonderful texture to it. I can almost feel the thickness of the paper between my fingers when just looking at the tone and texture of the image. Also, very nice shape and distribution of continents. I like your names too. They give a good feel for individuated cultures, but without being too complex to easily remember.

I was trying to work out the weather patterns in my head. A westerly wet/dry wind would generate the rainshadow on Kwe'aela, but I suspect there would be a bit more drying out east of Kwe'aela too. The islands might be a bit dryer than they appear on the map at the moment, although by the time winds reach the next continent they might have picked up some more moisture, so the darker green works ok there? Hope that makes some sense.

However, that's a minor point and if you desperately wanted to you could just add some browning to the islands east of Kwe'aela perhaps to even out the rainshadow a bit. It really is a very nice piece of work as is.

Chris

[vorropohaiah]

looking nice perhaps making the orange border a bit less opaque, so we can see the paper texture a bit more (or set it to overlay). also, once you're done with the text, you can rasterize it and do the same grunging to it that you done to the lines, to make the words feel more like part of the map

i like how this map's progressing - its really starting to look like something found in the world itself. nice stuff

[Hai-Etlik]

The white labels look rather "CG" to me. White "ink" is hard to do effectively. You have to create a thick opaque layer over top where as pigments can soak in. That means white ink has to be thicker than pigment inks and not very good for fine detail. It's also not as durable. I think you'd be better off sticking with black and then lightening the colours you use for the land cover instead.

There are also some incongruities with the colour washes. The interior of the land has a bunch of subtle variation that looks like meaningless noise that I think you meant to be artefacts of the physical process of making the map. If they are meant to be meaningful features, they should be more distinct. If not, they are too distinct and also quite coarse compared to the very precise boundary at the coastline. That mismatch between the noisy interior and the sharply precise edges looks artificial.

Try to think about a notional cartographer who is making a real map of the world they live in using the techniques and materials available in that world. Consider what information they are trying to convey, and what how they would do so. Consider what they would try to do, and where their techniques would fail to measure up to that ideal. If you add imperfections they would have avoided, or display precision they couldn't have achieved it will give away the origin of the map. If you do both at once (like the noisy interior and the sharp coastlines) it downright clashes.

[Aredhel]

I like how it's going. Nice job!

[BookOwl]

Sorry for the long absence, I got real sick and am finally feeling better now.

Christopher Johnstone: Thanks! The paper texture I made myself a few years ago with some tea. Thanks for the thoughts on the rainshadow, I'll probably fix that. Since you pointed it out, it does seem a bit odd for that western island to be so green.

vorropohaiah: Thanks! I'll try that out, with the orange border. I plan on doing the grunge effects on the text but it'll be the last thing I do in case I have to change anything.

Hai-Etlik: I think the black really got lost, especially in the dark green areas. I tried just about every shade of grey (as well as other colors) before deciding on straight white. I thought about changing the darkness/lightness depending on what color was behind the text but I really prefer to have all text be the same color. I understand what you mean about the white pigment but I think I'll keep it white, I like the way it looks I did add noise to the interior color because I thought that before the colors looked too smooth to have been painted on rough paper, it looked out of place to me. I may try some stuff out but so far I really like it. Thanks

Aredhel: Thanks


And an update! I completed the names just before I got sick and didn't get a chance to post it until now. I also made the font for both the countries and the cities smaller. And I totally used that text to path tool :

[Christie Shadow]

Hi BookOwl, that's a nice map you've got going there! Beautiful work! I'm especially impressed with your colouring, what do you use?

I'm with Chris on what he said regarding the rain shadow on Kwe'aela, but my main concern is that the mountain range that divides Aethos W-E is a bit "thin" in the eastern parts. The "folded carpet"-effect that would have resulted in the mountain ranges W-E should (IMO) have generated a more rugged structure where the mountains meet the N-S-ranges - it should have resulted in higher mountains and a broader mountainous area where they "collided" - I take it that it is three different tectonic plates that meets there?

[BookOwl]

Christie Shadow: Do you mean what program? I use Photoshop CS5. I've only been vaguely thinking about tectonic plates but now that you've mentioned it, it does look like three. I've added some more mountains and think it looks better


Update on where the west/east and north/south mountain ranges meet in Aethos and the river in E'avok. I think the river looks much better now. Thoughts?

[vorropohaiah]

this is coming along really nicely. great work

[BookOwl]

vorropohaiah: Thank you


Update! I've added rivers! Like, a lot of them. I think I drew the rivers properly, as in they are in places they may actually be in the real world. Please tell me if any rivers look out of place or something I've also changed the coloring and stuff of the rivers since the last update. I've added a couple of lakes as well. I think I should add a lake or two in Aethos/Kwe'aela/Anza too. And then I've only added some more countries on the southeast end of the Delrek Rivî Plains and fixed the country borders that were drawn all over the mountains and stuff. And I've changed the coloring a bit in Eávok and on the two islands east of Kwe'áela, as Christopher Johnstone and Christie Shadow suggested.