WIP - (ambitious) World Map of fictious earth-like planet

[Pixie]

So here's a final (or next to final) version I am very proud of.
Now it's about cartography and graphical aspects.

Re-working things again with the help of g.plates was really productive but it also revealed inconsistencies in the direction of parts of plates I was confident about. This made me work a little harder and I admittedly spent a lot of time in the last days grinding all the details. Plates are as they are and I won't reconfigure them in any way (shape or movement). My adjustments also involved changing quite a bit the coastlines - these are not absolutely final as the work on the topographical map changes that a little bit. New mountains rose, a few valleys opened apart, a couple of lakes and inner seas found their way to the surface and a lot of islands popped up...

So at the present state this is my candidate to "finished map". But I am wondering about the graphical sides of it, and here I call for the mapping experts here at the guild.


What strikes as missing? How's the color balance? How's readability?
This is a modern map, sort of a reference map you would find on wikipedia today, and it is inspired (shamelessly) on this one.
I am uncertain about adding curved arrows to show plate movement or any other stuff as I am worried that I won't be able to do that without harming the clean look it has now.

[groovey]

Great work Pixie! I didn't expect less from you. Wish I could rep you right now, but I did too recently so I can't sadly.

You know I'm far from an experienced guild member, so while they share their thoughts, I'll share my thoughts as an average person looking at a tectonic map:

1. It looks very clean and polished.

2. The colors for either the land, the sea and the boundaries work really well, though I could mention that sometimes black and blue were a bit difficult to differentiate at some bits, even when zooming in, like Uralkia/Tinike or Jarabeu or the little transform bit on Hoppan/Palamb.

3. Silly detail perhaps you have an explanation for it to be there: Martinia/Krasia, shouldn't the subduction triangle inland be empty like the other ones, since you seem to use them empty to indicate continental/continental convergence?

4. The font for the labels is very easy to read and looks attractive too. I think even when some letter gets a bit overshadowed by the map elements (like Shidian, Campala), it's still readable so I don't thing is an issue.


And that's all I can think about.

[Naima]

Very cool , is there any tutorial on follow the same steps as you did in using gplates?

[Pixie]

Thanks for your points, groovey, I'll try to play about with that blue to get more contrast. And yes, good eye for detail, I missed a couple of triangles.
About the clash between fonts and the brown "border" for the land, I am aware of it and couldn't work out a better solution yet.

@Naima: if I find the time, I might make that little tutorial (along with finishing the other tutorial I left half-done, about climates).

[Naima]

Cool thanks :=) .

[ascanius]

Hey there Pixie. I really like the map and I would like to say congratulations on reaching a point you are confident about calling finished, at least for this stage.

Overall I think it is very well done and I especially like your balance between large, mid, micro and the extreme micro plate between Wealat and Nagaraib. I do like how clean it looks right now, I don't know if adding the arrows is worth it. You might want to place a few just to see how they look and if they clutter things.

aside from the blue black color problem I suggest getting rid of the brown continental boarder. The blue, cold color, will contrast very well with the pale brown, warm color, without the need for the brown boarder.

[Pixie]

Many thanks to everyone's remarks.

I've lighten up the blue transform boundaries, fixed the triangles that needed fixing, made the land border lighter (inexistent didn't work), added arrows to show movement, added names for the sea masses, added a small legend... and called it finished, complete and closed.

You can see the final result here.

PS: (groovey, see if you can find the word "Picsë" in the map - it's there...)

[groovey]

New mountains rose, a few valleys opened apart, a couple of lakes and inner seas found their way to the surface and a lot of islands popped up...

I'm trying to figure out how to determine where big lakes (visible in world map scale) would need to be, then I remembered you seem to have come up with yours while doing tectonics, so I'm a bit confused about that. How did doing tectonics let you know where those lakes would have to be?

Also, what will you work on next? Tutorials or height-map? Though an eventual tutorial or guideline of your height-map technique would also be awesome.

[Naima]

Btw did you have still ur old maps or you reconstructed by memory ?

[Pixie]

@groovey:
There's two types of big lakes related to tectonics that you can find on Earth as exemplary. First you've got rift lakes, where two plates are diverging (or where one plate is breaking apart). Lake Baikal and Lake Malawai are good examples, but the Dead Sea is another one. These tend to be quite long and thin. Then you've got former seas which are getting closed or uplifted. Lakes/seas north of the main the ridge from the Alps to the Himalayas are the best examples, but a much closer example to you is the Ebro basin. I think you'll like this link.
So, I just placed some lakes close to where I had continental crust "stitched" together.

@naima
No, unfortunately, I have no idea where I have those maps or even if they still exist. It's a shame, but alas... it's all done by memory (but I still remember a lot - it wasn't just a geographical map, it was a whole world with history)