Critique request, my January challenge entry

[Lingon]

I wanted to ask for some critique on the map I made for the one-week challenge, as judging by the amount of votes it's getting, it was a total fail Because of the method I used, there's not much I can do to change it (hence, posting in Finished rather than WIP) but I plan to redo it sometime soon or at least use the style again, and while I have a few ideas on how to improve it, it'd be wonderful to hear some others' thoughts as well.



I know most of you don't paint with my stone age techniques, but hopefully this next bit will make enough sense for you to picture what's happening

My method:
Paint landmasses dark grey
Airbrush white for elevation
Paint ridges white with regular brush
Paint rivers black with regular brush
Color and label digitally

My probable next attempt:
Put mask on the water
Airbrush lowlands black, keeping the white of the paper for higher elevations, but not leaving any pure white.
Spray on a thin coat of white all over to lower the contrast, if it gets too dark
Paint ridges white with regular brush
Paint rivers black with regular brush
Remove mask and color with oil washes
Label digitally

That way, I'd get sharp ridges along all the mountains, avoiding the too bright highlands that allowed no further highlighting. It's also easier to adjust the height of the mountains when the sea is masked off – I would have done that for my challenge entry, but cutting the mask was too time consuming for that deadline, so I had to skip it. Painting the "shadows", dark areas, right away eliminates the need to paint the landmasses gray first, saving that step.

I'm not likely to rush into the remake, but… if you have any thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them