The Vally of Xernia - Region Map

[Ling27]

This is my first attempt at a computer made map. Most of the time i did maps using pencil and paper at school and stuff. It is the eastern most edge of a flying sky land thing... for the D&D campaign I just started. Anyway... not exactly used to this thing so I am using a tutorial (Ascension's Atlas Tutorial). I am at step 42. What do you guys think? What do I need to fix or work on? Please leave some help and tips. Thanks.

XERNIA.jpg

[Naima]

Depends on where you are aiming to ?

Some start to make a belieavable world like Earth , others to make a magic filled world so the geographical features follow different laws ...
Some have different goasl for their maps , some want to map cultures , others geography etc ...

what's ur goald there?

[Azélor]

It still look pretty abstract

[Ling27]

Its the eastern most region of a landmass that was risen into the sky thousands of years ago. The normal weather patterns cause rain to come from the east. Its supposed to be a basin like area with the one open side which is why there is the large sea... mountians are *supposed* to be around the edges.

[Ling27]

I think that the issue I am running into is that I am using cs6 and tutorial seems to have been done on an earlier one. So it is causing some problems. Im still trying to work it out.

[Falconius]

I'm seeing the black/dark masses as land is that correct?

[BlackChakram]

Hmm. I may be able to offer a little advice.

You mentioned that this is your first go at a computer map. Have you already done a map of this area using pen and paper? I've found that when doing maps, it can be helpful to remind myself what I'm going for. Otherwise, it's way too easy to get lost in the details. If you can post a pen and paper sketch, we can see not just what you have, but what you want. I know I'd love to see what you're going for!

[Ling27]

Alas, I did not map this out on paper before hand, but I did have a series of notes that I made in my handy-dandy green Notebook of Stuff, which included:

1. Lake/Sea in middle where water runs to.
2. Mountains around edges except east side.
3. Ancient Language on map or something similar
4. Flying island on the eastern side of map.

After playing around with what I had I came up with this:
XERNIA.jpg

I kinda like the style that was created with what I have and throwing in the kinda, off back ground, it adds a certain appeal to it, though I don't know why. I think I need to add some more light coloring. I don't know exactly. What do you guys think?
Maybe i'll draw this up by hand tonight or something and work on figuring out what I want more specifically, but our scanner isn't working quite right at the moment. I'll figure it out.

[BlackChakram]

This style definitely looks better. I'd make the mountains pop a little more. Maybe some defined edges?

If you want to go for realism, it's worth noting that a lot of mountains run in chains and ridges.
Ridge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mountain range - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now don't get me wrong. Floating continents are definitely not earth-like terrain, so if you want to have lots of solo mountains not in chains, that's perfectly cool. Just an idea.

Edit: Looking more closely at your map, it looks like you have made some of the mountains in chains. I definitely couldn't tell that from the zoomed out view. Maybe define those ridges a bit more. Connect 'em to be longer, too, maybe.

[Ling27]

So, after taking a few days to look at how roads and stuff like that work, and then to relax over the weekend, and work... i've picked up my map of Xernia again. Initially I wanted to work on the locations of the towns, so I started by looking at old maps of the world and observing where logical places would be for this one. Near water ways or other easy forms of travel I wanted to put one out a ways from the rest as well, and one more north. I've also added drop shadow to the mountains to see if that helped make them stand out. This is today's version.

(I think that the ability to place an image needs to get fixed. It is very hard to upload an image from the computer itself.)