Astrea and Ozpya (Kind-of a First Map)

[perfectdisaster]

I'm pretty new to map making. I tried making a map for a fantasy novel idea I had in my head about a year ago and eventually gave up on both (the novel and map). Recently I picked both of them back up, changed basically everything but kept some elements are still the same. I tried mapping it all in GIMP (I read at least a dozen tuts on map-making in GIMP or Photoshop) and wasn't liking what I had (for a lot of reasons), and found myself back at square one. This time I decided to sketch it first before doing anything in GIMP (besides picking my color palette).



In it's current state, it's not very pretty. The mountains are brown, the hills are pink, all of the waves are the same opacity, the font is hard to read because it's purple, etc. There are a lot of mistakes, and a lot of things to add. I really wanted to see the process unfold, and this seemed like a good way to do it. That and I hope it'll hold me accountable. Hopefully.

Anyway, all of the cities (or some of them) are initialed for my benefit. I know no one knows what any of those mean, but eventually there will be some sort of bullet and the city name. Marseedin (Mars-eed-en), marked MEN, is the capital of Astrea (As-tree-a) and Glimmermoor, marked GM, is the capital of Ozpya (Oz-pe-a). I'm also working on building the religions of these two countries, which will play into the names of the cities, forests, rivers, mountains, etc., and the houses while I'm working on this, so I'll try to include some sort of history while I go. Like the citizens that live in the desert-portion of Ozpya (the north-eastern corner of the continent) will be sun-worshipers, and Apdar's Wall and Apdar's Fort, marked AF, are named after the God of Building Things (or something more eloquent than that, I don't have all the details sorted yet). Apdar's Wall is built on the Astrea side of the border, and the rest of the border is split down the Bleak Peaks.

That's all I got for now. I'll take a food break, and then I'll get to the next phase of the map-making process: putting it in GIMP and sketching over the coastlines.