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Thread: Hi: Another Introduction Thread

  1. #1
    Guild Novice
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    Default Hi: Another Introduction Thread

    Hi!

    My name is Alex. I've been creating fantasy worlds, and especially drawing maps, most of my life. My current and probably never ending project is my world called Sanuin, which I am focusing mostly on one small continent known only as the Lands. My goal this summer is to create more detailed regional maps and push into city and village maps. This last year I've made considerable headway into a detailed history of the Lands, but the culture creation is daunting and my first language is limited and needs a lot of work.

    I'm hoping this community will be the motivation I need to plow headlong into my world building, and that some of my limited concepts and understanding will broaden with a little advice.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by FallenImmortal; 06-15-2013 at 12:32 PM.

  2. #2
    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Korash's Avatar
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    Default

    Advice and motivation we have a plenty around here. If you want help fleshing out your maps this is THE place to be. We have a tutorial forum as well as a WIP forum (that is Work in Progress) where you can post the maps you are working on and receive all kinds of help and have your questions answered.We are a friendly bunch so you need not fear for someone knocking your work. One of the main reasons for this is that we have ALL started somewhere with maps that might not be the best, but have grown in skill through this site.

    And finally, Welcome to the Guild, the Mappiest Place on the Web.
    Art Critic = Someone with the Eye of an Artist, Words of a Bard, and the Talent of a Rock.

    Please take my critiques as someone who Wishes he had the Talent

  3. #3
    Guild Expert rdanhenry's Avatar
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    Default

    Welcome. Like many new visitors, it looks like you should read up on rivers (http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...ght-place.html). Since rivers are pretty important to civilization, the earlier you make changes, the easier it will be.

    As far as appearance goes, I think these are promising, except for the huge size of some of the mountain icons. Some sense of scale on the map of the Lands would be helpful.

    The world map shows a nice mix of larger continents and islands and avoids several common pitfalls. It is a really nice start, but a bit incomplete. Have you considered how much of the polar regions have been cut off at the top and bottom, or what projection the map is in? It matters a lot less if you just need a general idea of the whole world and stay focused on the Lands, but you ought to at least keep the questions in mind, in case you do want to carefully remap the world later.

    Is that glacier in the northeast of the Lands? That's pretty close to the equator (assuming that's what the line across the world map is). To be sure, you get glaciers in Tibet, but that's due to great mountains pushed up by the Indian subcontinent crashing into Asia. There's no sign of anything that might push up mountains anywhere near that height on the Lands. I suppose volcanic mountains could do it, but that kind of height on volcanoes would imply some pretty terrible conditions in the geologically-recent past. On the other hand, if the mountain god waved his hand and the ground rose up to great heights, that's another matter. You have more information than we do, since it is your world, so something that looks strange to us may make perfect sense in context.

  4. #4
    Guild Novice
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    Default

    Thanks for the pointers. I know my world map doesn't make a lot of sense yet, but it's as you stated, that I just need a general idea of the world and my focus is in the Lands. I'll get around to making the world make more sense eventually, but for the moment I needed a better concept of directional and regional origins of different races of people. After making that map, I decided that the Lands were too far south, and the whole world really too compact. I meant for it to be small, but it is much too short. I meant for the continent/island of the Lands to have drifted from the northern regions which were supposed to be more mountainous. When I redo it, I'm probably going to properly use latitude and longitude lines and make sure that the scaling works better.

    The map of the Lands also is lacking scaling entirely. The rivers are way too wide for the scale I'm using, as well as the mountains. But, this is a better version than my first map and considerably better for my history development. When I redo this one, I'm going to probably not use symbols as much, using some of the information and tutorials on here. The mountains are insanely large so I know which are supposed to be big mountain ranges. The continent is supposed to be about 400x500 miles (650x800 km). Clearly not to scale. But I'm slowly working on solidifying positions of things, etc. I've been failing at rivers. I think using a better system for elevation will help with that, instead of symbols and hoping I remember where the highland is.

    Thanks for all the tips. I don't know when I'll be redoing the Lands map, but at least now I have a good list of what to work on when I do get to it.

  5. #5

    Default

    Welcome to the Guild FallenImmortal!

    Cheers,
    -Arsheesh

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