[Variously WIP] Maps of Telluris

[jbgibson]

One of the aspects contributing to a digital feel might be the transparency of the title block and the flag.

There's a wonderful document on label placement, which these would benefit from. Sorry I don't have the CG link saved on my phone, but search should turn it up. On just this last one, I'd counsel that if you're going to cross coastlines with words, arrange things so no character actually lies stop the coastline. Usually one can avoid those crossings, but I don't figure it's worth major typographic gymnastics to stay 'pure' with that rule of thumb. Particularly with monochrome line work features, text gets lost when overlaid. I imagine a period cartographer putting down labels first, then filling in area symbols like your trees. If done in that order, I'm sure he would avoid laying one over the other.

Another thought about the mostly monochrome map... Adding vividly colored extras makes it clear the mapper had access to pigments - if so, why would he not make some on-map features stand out with color?

The lake having three exit rivers is a hydrologic illogic-- one sees multiple inputs to a lake but only one output. Take a look at the excellent tutorial on How to Get Your Rivers in the Right Place.

Overall you have a good look going- nice start. You've hit on the surest ways to improve-- post WIPs for comment, and make a LOT of maps :-).

[Deuce]

OK - so, first off, thanks for the feedback. I haven't made many maps since May due to computer issues, but I got a new computer a couple of weeks back and have been looking to make some adjustments based on the comments. This also gave me a chance to look at some of the maps which inspired my interest in cartography in the first place - Willem Blaeu, John Speed, the Catalan Atlas and, thanks to my parents, the Blaeu Atlas Major.

This is the latest one. It's not finished yet, particularly around the borders, and some neatening up, and more colouring on the ships and cartouche, needs to happen, but this is the sort of direction I've taken things in. I put the labelling in first in most cases, so the terrain features can sit around the lettering; I've done borders and rivers in a different style to make them more visually distinct (on the AQUA map there's actually only one river, but the borders look like rivers). I've tried to introduce some colour to offset the heraldry, and moved the heraldry to the border where at some point I'll try to put a proper border around it - I'm not artistically capable enough to draw those pictures of national dress that sit around the edge of early modern maps, so the heraldry will have to do. I'll also add some rhumb lines at some point once I've worked out a decent way to create them, and probably some more rivers.

I'd like for the maps to have more density of detail, and put more settlements on, like the maps I've used for inspiration, but since most of the maps I'm doing are for regions other people have designed (and because the world being mapped has a very low population density), that's not up to me so much. I could put more trees on, but I think less is more to an extent there. I'll try to encourage it in future, though, and will add some more settlements in the southeastern corner of this map where it is at least partly up to me.

[NedS298]

It's nice, but the borders seem slightly messy and there isn't much going on on the left side. That seems to take away the balance a bit, so work on that and it'll be a fair bit better straight away.