The foundations of a new world

[AlexSchacher]

Alright heres an update, with a new continent (about Greenland sized) and some islands near it. I also altered the southern continent.



Thanks Blazes, that wasn't my intention to make it seem like the ocean had risen up on the lands a lot, but you're right. Kind of interesting, but how would that be explainable in my world as to why the water level seems to have risen globally so much? Is that even possible? The only thing I can think of is if Antartica completely melted for some reason.

[Hai-Etlik]

Assuming your world is supposed to be spherical, you should really give some thought to that and what projection you are using. Any projection is going to cause very significant distortion of some sort when you flatten a sphere (or spheroid) into a flat map. That distortion can take the form of stretching, squashing, tearing, sheering, and rotation. Different projections distort or preserve different properties in different areas of the map, which makes them suitable for different kinds of map.

For instance, for a population density map, you generally want a map that preserves the area of shapes, but which distorts shapes a lot to do so (In Cartography/Math speak this is called an "Equal Area" or "Equivalent" projection) For a navigational map, you will often want a map that preserves shapes/angles, at the expense of distorting sizes (In Cartography/Math speak this is called a "conformal" projection) or which preserves great circles as straight lines ("Gnomonic") while for general reference maps like you find in an atlas or an educational wall map, you usually want a projection that balances different kinds of distortion out ("Hybrid" or "Compromise" projections)

For maps with restricted extents, you want projections that minimize the distortion within that extent, and push all the distortion out into areas not in the map. The smaller the extent, the more closely you can fit the projection for a better map. The finer details of which projection to use for large scale mapping ("zoomed in") are not that important to fantasy mapping, but at small scales ("zoomed out") it has a very large impact.

If you draw a small scale map without any distortion from the projection, it's simply wrong, and will look wrong to anyone familiar with maps. If you ever try to change the projection, the problem will become VERY clear. If you want to get this right, it's something you need to worry about right at the beginning. There are sometimes ways to 'fix' it after the fact, generally for larger scale maps like continents. For whole worlds, you are usually just out of luck if you got it wrong. The problem is that if you drew the map without distortion, then whatever projection you assume the map is in, that lack of distortion in the map means the land itself has to be distorted the opposite way to the projection in order to compensate. So when you switch projections, you get the backwards distortion of the first projection combined with the forward distortion of the second.

[Viking]

Ice cap melting would be one solution to that yes :p I would try to think about possible tectonic plates and how those would affect your land masses. They look a little random but maybe I'm just a crazy person. Actually, I think water levels are all very relative since they change over the millennia anyways. If you look at google earth it's really interesting to look at all the land masses that we would have if the sea level went down significantly. The coast of Africa for one would have a lot more islands. Small islands really are just mountain tops.

My only advice at this point probably sounds strange so let me preface what I currently see. Right now your coast lines are very etched and dynamic with lots of bays, isthmuses, and islands which is actually fantastic. The most boring kind of maps have very coastlines nearing circular blobs so you are absolutely on the right side of that! I'd suggest actually relaxing the jaggedness in some areas and smooth them out a bit. In the real world you do have areas like Greece, Japan, Indonesia, and I guess the whole of the Mediterranean and Caribbean which have lots of little bits to them and are very dynamic. On the other hand you also get areas of regularity and broader shapes, such as: the western bit of south America, much of the coast of Africa, much of Australia, India and south east China. All these areas on the small level have lots of jaggedness but from afar are smooth shapes which are not too interrupted. Let yourself have some generally larger shapes too.

I guess I am trying to say have dynamic shapes on the medium and lower scale but also on the larger scale. Try having a continent that looks like banana, crescent moon or a pear and have some coastlines be highly broken up while maybe on the other side the coast is more smooth. Again looking a Turkey, its southern and northern coasts are smooth but its western one is all chopped up. If you allow for a larger mass of unbroken land you could imagine a larger desert or plain situation being there. This advice can also be applied to continent spacing, placement and relative size. Your north and south landmass groups are similar in size over all.


This is a LOT of writing but I don't think your map is off to a bad start or anything and I actually like it! This stuff is to a degree all a matter of taste as well and I find myself overlooking it from time to time. I hope do you get what I'm trying to convey here