Help for my first map

[Jalyha]

I don't necessarily think you need to indicate the reefs, depending on the size/scale of your map.

I'm not sure how big your continent is, so I can't really tell.

but... usually, they follow a line... not a straight line, more of a curve, but they wouldn't clump together.

For an example, here's a snapshot of Rottnest Island/Reefs from Google maps:




I just want to say one other thing - You don't have to change anything on your map just because someone says you should. Every single person here has different tastes and opinions and preferences. I've seen some really great cartographers here agreeing to disagree over some fine point or another.

I can't even make my own map yet.

All I can do is tell you what *I* see, and how it feels to me. Someone else will have a different opinion. When it all boils down - it's your map. It's *literally* your world, and you should do whatever you feel is best.

I say this because it seems as if you might be getting frustrated, and you shouldn't. People just want to help you make the best map you can, and only YOU can actually do it.

That being said - I like the look around the islands, now, but did you change something about the color of the rest of the map too? It looks more solid now.

[Crotal]

I know this is my map but I come to have some advice to have a better map. And I think Zach and you give me some good advices. So I follow them ^^ You mention things that I want to change : reef and the circle, color of background. It's difficult to adapt my world on this map to obtain what I want.

My map is an half of hemisphere of the Earth. So I don't need to mention of all reefs. But, this one is a big pot of rock and volcanus and I want my players see it on map. Perhaps, it's not the best way to represent the reef on my map. If anyone have some idea to represent them better. I take ^^

For color, I think it's the better quality of picture. First is a jpg and here is a png. And the color change in the south island. I delete the two lines you can see on the first map.

My next challenge is : mountain and forest !

[Crotal]

I come back with my new version of my map ! I do all mountain and 2 forest.

[Zach]

Wow, nice mountains. Those look a lot better than I am aspiring to draw right now.
The trees, though...I'm not sure I like the trees. For one, a lot of your trees are as tall as the smaller mountains. Also, you have to figure out what you want the azimuth of the light source (the direction from which the light comes) to be, otherwise everything looks weird. The mountains would seem to indicate that the light is coming from the left. The trees' shadows, however, make it look like it is coming from the upper right. The shadows also overlap, which looks odd. I don't really think the trees need to have shadows, if you draw individual trees and not one big forest.
Remind me again why there is a gradient to white in the bottom of the map?

Z

[Jalyha]

That's looking a lot better!

and I like your mountains and forest..

I might still darken the area of your reefs a little more and maybe blend it a little (like you did with your land colors/textures) but that's just me. It looks really good!

[Crotal]

Yes, the trees are too big regarding the mountains. I'm searching a new brush for tree more hand draw perhaps. I'm not really satisfied of the trees. I want change them.

For the reefs (and the circle around big island in the same way), I search a new color. In the same way of the trees, I'm not satisfied but I don't find better color for the moment.

Zach, the map is a half of hemisphere (or near). It represent a part of a world and this map is on the south hemisphere. So the south is Antartic and the north is near equator. At the south, you have snow and ice island.

[Crotal]

I come back with new forest ! The forest represent only the normal forest (and not all). The coniferous forest come in few days.

I have two questions :
- I want to add color on my mountain and forest. How can I do that ? I think two solutions : * first : add color below the forest/mountain or * second : add color on mountain and forest. But for the second, I think, I must add color tree by tree and mountain by mountain... very hard job.
- I want to have mountain and forest more dark. I don't find any filter to do that. I want both have a draw mor darken.

I try to do river and road... It's not a success for the moment so I don"t show you this work.

[aquarits]

For the mountains, maybe adding a layer and colloring how you want, applying some layer effects and blurring/ smudging the foot to get some transition. At this point you can work with black and white for shadows and highlights
when i do, i like to color the icons before apply in the map.

I have a observation about you borders, maybe it can help with you borders, Chashio helped me alots:

Attachment 53463

aquartis, have you ever read the Imager Portfolio series by L.E. Modesitt, Jr? It has some similarities to your setting. And it's quite a good read.

[Scoopz]

Speaking of borders, you might want leave some space between your mountains and the coastline, specifically on the leftmost isle and the bottom continent, it almost looks as if the water is overlapping or that the image is somehow cut off/under a layer. If you see what I mean.

[Crotal]

I had follow the different advice and below the result.
I had changed :
- a blur on all the map for the background
- border had changed
- add some forest and rivers.