WIP World Map

[Azélor]

I haven.t noticed the bayou biome in your list. Well I believe bayou refers to a region of Southern Louisiana? It's not that different from a mangrove.

I picture the conifer forest like this: https://www.britannica.com/science/coniferous-forest
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrc...876px_USED.jpg

And the taiga like this: https://www.livescience.com/1350-sur...nts-trees.html
http://labdendro.uqar.ca/wp-content/...17_recadre.jpg

It is basically a transition from a dense forest to a sparse one with small trees. From an artistic perspective it's a big deal. If you want to portray the biome accurately, you need to break the canopy and separate the trees in smaller groups.
The same is true for the savanna and mediterranean biome to some extend.


Form the equator, the progression look like this and is pretty consistent laterally over a large region.
Tropical > savanna > steppe > desert > steppe > Mediterranean > Deciduous > mixed > coniferous > taiga > tundra > polar
Ghana >Burkina Faso (south)> Sahel > Mali >North africa> South Europe and North Africa> Most of Europe > South Scandinavia, Baltic > Central Scandinavia, Scottish highlands > Kola P.> North Europe, Iceland, Greenland coast > Greenland

[Arimel]

I realize that this is coming out about a week later than I had initially said it would but after I started drawing on the blank paper I could not make myself post it until it was full. This first texture palette (and I do realized that I misspelled 'palette' on on the sheet) includes several of the 'simpler' textures/icons that I already had ideas for.

I am rather pleased with how most of these textures look. The ones that I am most uncertain about on this sheet are the mediterranean texture and the coral reef texture. The mediterranean texture looks too similar to the savanna (which I also spelled wrong). I am not sure how to really change this though... As for the coral reef, I am not happy with the fact that when I look at the icon, I do not immediately think "Its a coral reef!" but I dont know a way to correct this. The texture is also rather messy and may stand out too much in the nearly blank oceans. Suggestions would be welcomed. Also, suggestions on improvements for the other textures would be appreciated.

Also, Azelor, I have attempted to create a difference between Taiga and coniferous biomes . I made the taiga as a coniferous forest biome that is changing into a tundra. Is this more of a realistic representation or have I completely messed up?

I should have another sheet of textures coming, although it contains several I will really have to experiment with so it may be a short while.

[Arimel]

It has been a while since my last post but life got busy over the holidays. This is the second half of the texture palette. I am in general pleased with the textures, other than the tundra and the badlands. Both of these do not look correct for me. Suggestions for any of the textures, especially these two, would be appreciated. I should be moving on to the next step now, creating a general world map that I can create the more detailed plan of later.

This image of the second page of the terrain texture palette was taken by a camera, and as such its quality is rather poor.

[Arimel]

Here is the first real plan of my world done in paint. It shows the tectonic plates in gray and the large land masses in green. The areas of land cover approximately 30% of the map, which is about the same as earth. This is an extremely approximated number in this case though. Also, I have tried to make the landmasses look like they could fit together in a larger continent and will try to make use of this when deciding which way each of the plates is moving. Any tips on how to improve this very basic plan or tips on how to continue with the planning of the map would be appreciated.

I will have a second picture in a few days that will show the types of tectonic plate boundaries (convergent, transform, or divergent) where the grey lines currently are.

[Azélor]

It is looking great!
The second picture is hard to see.

About the map thought:
Is that the Robinson projection?
Is the map cropped? Or the poles missing?

[Arimel]

It is looking great!
The second picture is hard to see.

About the map thought:
Is that the Robinson projection?
Is the map cropped? Or the poles missing?

I am hoping to get the second image scanned in soon and then the quality should be better.
The map is in the Eckert IV projection. The projection (if I understand it correctly) is supposed to keep the areas of continents the same as in reality except at the poles where some distortion occurs.

The map is not missing a part or cropped, at least not intentionally. I have tried to make it seem like the map should fit together as a globe if it would be folded. As such, I have tried to continue the continents across the poles so they would connect. Sorry if this is confusing. I am having a real difficult time trying to explain my thinking here.

Edit: Just looked up the Robinson projection and it is very similar to the Eckert projection. The main difference (I think) is that the Eckert projection has less distortion all around and displays the continents much closer to the actual size.

[Azélor]

Unless there is something hidden under the black lines, the poles are wrong. To put it simply, a pole is a particular point in space. It can't be water and land at the same time.
But because we use 2d maps instead of spheres, the pole is represented as a line, therefore it will always look stretched.
Note that I don't behave much knowledge of this projection and I'm not sure how it is supposed to fit on the sides.

So in order to make the map coherent, each plate running to the poles needs to be separate, they meet at the pole. Or maybe plate F would cover the pole.
In continent F is present at the pole, then it would stretch all from one side to the other. That would be the only way to link the main part with the other one south of continent A.

And the same thing is true for the north pole.

I hope this make sense. The problem is that, this is not a problem on Earth. The north pole is water/ice and Antarctica cover all the South pole.

[Arimel]

To save space I wont quote this one.

I think I understand what you (Azelor) mean here. I will hopefully have a new plan out in a day or two. Until then, here is the second page of the terrain palette scanned in.

[whisper_my_name]

Oh my!!! Thank you so much for sharing your Terrain Palettes!!! I too only hand draw my maps (although I am a complete newbie), and I've been scrounging lately for terrain textures, as well as sea textures. I love your Archipelago, barrier island, the dunes desert, forested hills, bamboo forest....well, all of it really. I'm currently coloring in my second map ever, but I already have visions for my third. Clearly cartography has consumed me. I'm amazed at the lengthy process you are going through, with the plate tectonics, and your outline of where you want to end up. I can't wait to see how you progress with this. I'm learning more and more every day from everyone, and I'm really happy I found this forum. Cheers and have fun!!

[Yasha Oqlie]

I hope it's ok that I'm chiming in on this. I think maybe some visual presentation might help with the problem of the poles. This is a map I'm working on that's really in early stages but should help illustrate the point. Forgive the weird distortions, it's far from being finished.



This is how it looks in "reality" (that is to say, in orthographic projection):



So if you want your poles to be covered with land, you have to stretch it out like that. Alternatively, if you want your poles covered in water, but want to show the land continuing around the globe, leave a few millimeters (or more, depending on your map) empty of any landmasses, like so:



Which should look like this in orthographic: