World map WIP

[mearrin69]

Finally got a chance to work on this some more. This one has rivers, political boundaries, city markers, and names - mostly placeholders, as you can probably tell, because I haven't yet done much development beyond my target area. Most likely I have too many "town" level items on the map - you can't even see them when zoomed out. I'll probably cut back.

The desert area yielded by Ascension's technique (which I like and have decided to keep rather than choosing a gradient without tans) has thrown me for a bit of a loop. I'm going to have to come up with a concept for that...but it'll be neat because it might not end up being too cliche.

For political boundaries I decided to just go with a line surrounded by a glow, rather than the multi-colored regions I sometimes see. The boundaries are funny anyway and I have a lot of island nations. I was thinking about just a line in the same style betwen island countries - like you see on modern maps marking political boundaries when they fall over water. Also, though I've drawn boundaries around them the "countries" aren't necessarily unified...Minguo is made up of five feuding emperors that constantly trade territory back and forth. Not sure how to denote this on the map or if I even want to bother. So, any thoughts on these conundrums will be appreciated.

@SG: Thanks! I honestly have no firm concept of what I want as a final step. I'm starting to think I might prefer a less-realistic style...though I want to finish this one off first for practice and to refine the design of all of that stuff I haven't even pondered yet...like "Odd Desert Empire" and "Somewheria".
M