Omniteras - Rainfall Isle

[TaylorH]

Hello, everyone. I would like to present to you Rainfall Isle.

I have created many maps in the past, however not to this extent I do not think. Rainfall Isle, the Lonely Archipelago, is a small island on my fictional world of Omniteras,which I have made purely for the fun and practice of cartography and to try to tax my geographical knowledge. The inspiration for Rainfall Isle comes from the British Isles, with its more heavily forested south and mountainous north. The climate would be very similar to the British Isles, and largely the Isle consists of temperate forest regions in the south, tundra/mountains in the north and wetland or bog in the midlands. The mountains, I imagine, are very much higher than in Scotland, with the focal point being the crown of mountains that encircle a great loch. Also a very long river cuts through the north to the and spills out into the rifts of the midlands. The concept behind the midland region of the Isle, although I am not using this map as a representation of a fictional world, could be that the rifts in the midlands would act as a catalyst for a political south-north divide. There are only two narrow land bridges to travel across if any theoretical inhabitants wanted to get to the south to the north and vice versa. The south is very much like England, although the main range of hills are higher than those found in the Peak District, I imagine. This is an imaginary world, after all, so the landscape might as well be scaled up.

I enjoyed making this map very much. There's something very thrilling about terraforming digitally, carving out all the river, plotting all the islands and placing in all the other little details by hand. Indeed, most of this was done by hand. I spent about three days working on this, and I am very proud of all the detail that went into this. I had recorded an in depth video that was more than ten minutes in length, but decided against it as that was too long. I have instead produced a small video that shows some of the stages that went into making the map.

Also, I should mention I have left out place names as I do not really believe in using fantasy names because I am not a linguist. I do not believe one should use fantasy names if they are not a linguist because all they are really doing is essentially hitting the keyboard to come up with a name for a region or town which subtracts from the realism and authenticity. I used to create fantasy maps, but this map is based off the British Isles and so to will future maps be based off other countries.

Rainfall Isle, the Lonely Archipelago: (Click for full size image)

Making Rainfall Isle: (view on fullscreen, 1080p)

[foremost]

Great video, nice to see the map come to life
through Photoshop. I really like how you did
the clouds as well.

Your river might be in need of some attention
however. I'm not a member of the river police
but if I was, I'd probably say your rivers
lack proper tributaries.

First, looking at the northern river, I saw it
widens out as it approaches the sea. To some
extent, I think that would be realistic; the
river is carry sands down from the mountains
and might get shallower and wider as it
progresses. But, at the same time, I think
most rivers widen only when they are met
by a tributary. There should be lots of little
streams coming down from those mountains.

As for the southern river, I think you may
have exaggerated the delta a bit. Plus,
that southern "hook" doesn't conform to the
"Laws of Rivers", because they can only
meet the sea in one place. Or so I believe.

But I don't want to tear you down and hyper-
focus on the rivers; this is a great map and
nice video. I DO think you did a wonderful
job with all the islands.

[TaylorH]

Great video, nice to see the map come to life
through Photoshop. I really like how you did
the clouds as well.

Your river might be in need of some attention
however. I'm not a member of the river police
but if I was, I'd probably say your rivers
lack proper tributaries.

First, looking at the northern river, I saw it
widens out as it approaches the sea. To some
extent, I think that would be realistic; the
river is carry sands down from the mountains
and might get shallower and wider as it
progresses. But, at the same time, I think
most rivers widen only when they are met
by a tributary. There should be lots of little
streams coming down from those mountains.

As for the southern river, I think you may
have exaggerated the delta a bit. Plus,
that southern "hook" doesn't conform to the
"Laws of Rivers", because they can only
meet the sea in one place. Or so I believe.

But I don't want to tear you down and hyper-
focus on the rivers; this is a great map and
nice video. I DO think you did a wonderful
job with all the islands.

Thanks, Foremost. You criticism is greatly appreciated and has put me in my place, I think. Maps aren't all about style. I think perhaps for my next map I'll try to focus more on those things you've highlighted as criticisms and also factor in scale, which is something I forgot to do. Truth be told this is one of my very first digitally rendered maps and I may have got carried away with the “terraforming” without paying attention to the actual accuracy certain geographical elements.

[TaylorH]

[Double post]