Can someone help me with my map?

[Breona]

Hey everyone, I have been working on a map for the fantasy series I plan to write, but I am learning that I am definitely not a cartographer. I could really use some help. I made my map on Inkarnate because I have no artistic skills. I am super proud of my continent outline, but Inkarnate's scale doesn't work for what I want to use it for. I want this to be a map of an earth-sized world, but the scale of the mountains and trees in Inkarnate make this look like one specific continent. I also find the color scheme to be too garish and I want something more simplified.

Based on the continent layout, this world reminds me a bit of Pangaea. All of the continents are sort of squished together. I love that idea (I can imagine lots of pirates and coastal battles in the middle sea area), and I want to roll with it. I've even done a bit research on Earth's climate during its earlier ages to get an idea of the different biomes that would likely be present. (lots of jungles and deserts, very little ice and snow. I want to live there instead of Minnesota!) I just need help making coastlines, mountain ranges, rivers, and such a bit more realistic. I am no map-making expert, so I don't know what the inch to mile scale would be, but I am sure some of you smart people can help me come up with something reasonable.

What I REALLY need is a very large-scale black-and-white (not grayscale. I want everything to be white except for drawn objects/terrain features, which would be black) version of the map. This is so that I can later go in and make edits as I need to or add in political lines for countries and such. I also need someone more knowledgable than me to make the proportions more realistic. I know that the rivers I drew are much too large in proportion to the continents, for example. The coastlines probably need some touch-ups, and I have no idea how to draw realistic archipelagos and such, so whoever takes the job would need to add in small islands where they would make sense. As far as style goes, I'm really not too picky. I want it to be easy to tell what kind of terrain a region has without the map looking too busy. A great example is this one (it's simple, easy to read, and shows good variation in terrain. It is also easy to see the difference between land and water, and I love how you can see clearly where the foothills of the mountain ranges would start): http://i.imgur.com/h98Vu3B.jpg. A good example is the map of Alagaesia from Eragon (easy to read, easy to tell the difference in terrain; the heavy shading makes it look a bit busy, though, and the southern mountain ranges look odd to me): https://www.paolini.net/wp-content/u...r_fan_mail.jpg. A bad example is this one (much too busy): http://michaeliantorno.com/wp-conten...6_worldmap.jpg. In general, I prefer to see forests instead of clumps of individual trees and ranges instead of individual mountains.

I'm not sure if this is realistic or not, but I am envisioning a map size that would be roughly 4x6 feet if printed out. If that isn't realistic, we can talk about it together. I want the map to be HUGE because it will be easier to include more detailed terrain features which will help me tremendously in world building. I want to build the physical world first and then create cultures and peoples to fit their settings. (If a small kingdom is in an isolated valley, for example, they likely have a separate language and culture from kingdoms that are more linked by trade routes and rivers.) From there, I can develop religions and governments for each region and discover large-scale conflicts that will eventually form the plot for the story. The world map is a crucial step in the world-building process.

Another note is that I currently do not know where cities, towns, and kingdoms will be located. I have a vague idea for some, but I plan to add in those details at a later time (in large part because I am TERRIBLE at coming up with names for places and characters. My next step after completing my map is to work on developing fantasy languages so that I can make consistent names for different regions). I don't know what file format is ideal for this, but I want to be able to load the map into Krita (free alternative to Photoshop) and add separate layers for political boundaries, migration patterns (I know that some of the cultures will be nomadic), and cities/towns.

This may be too much to ask, but I would prefer the map to be in vector format. Inkarnate uses raster, and I hate it. I need to be able to zoom into specific regions while I write, and I don't want things to be pixellated.

I really don't know how much a map like this would cost. I feel like I am asking a lot, but maybe this is a simpler task than I think it is. If you are interested in taking on my project, we can discuss a cost together. (I am thinking somewhere in the ballpark of $50-$100. If that is unreasonable, please let me know in the comments!) I have never commissioned a map before, and I am not planning to make money off of my writing anytime soon. It will probably take me at least 5-10 years before I am ready to publish even the first book.

In terms of copyright, I want reproduction rights to the map so that I can include it when I am ready to publish my writing. If/when that time ever comes, I really want the artist to receive credit for their work, so I am happy to allow the mapmaker to retain full copyright. I am not sure if I understand copyright laws correctly or not. Basically, the map would be yours to do with as you please, but I want to be able to use it, too!

Please comment here if you are interested in taking on this project! If I accept your help, I will PM you my email so that we can set up a time to discuss the specifics of the map and payment.

Here are the images of the map that I have so far. One includes the locations of mountains, major rivers, and forests/jungles I have come up with so far (they are horribly out of scale with the landmasses though.) The other is just an outline of the continents.