Thank You Cartographer's Guild

[Robbie]

Wow that map now has twice the character it had before with the addition of all the places...I look forward to seeing your compass rose...Thats always my favorite part of the map as if you couldn't tell by the site logo.

[pyrandon]

This thread is a perpetual delight, helium. Coming along wonderfully. You're just about to the fine-tuning stage, aren't you? (That's my favorite part: after raw materials have been put in, tweak-tweak-tweaking!)

Keep it up!

[ravells]

Truly delightful! It's like a page out of a storybook!

[helium3]

So I just have to say, when I do my next regional map, I'm going to figure out where the descriptive text will go BEFORE putting in the details. I'm having a tough time putting in names that don't make the map look incredibly cluttered.

[RPMiller]

That's what legends are for.

[helium3]

Hah hah. That's not exactly what I mean. I'll post the map with descriptive text turned on at a later date and you'll see what I mean. It goes from clean to cluttered. It's not a HUGE deal because of the way I'm using the map, but it'll definitely be something I'll think about for the next one.

In the meantime, I've added what I'm calling "Doo-Dads" to the map. I may still fiddle around with the "Sea Serpent."

[helium3]

And here's what it looks like after I, as some posters suggested, added in a region of half-tone color underneath mountains, hills and sand dunes.

I don't think it detracts in any significant way from the map, but I'm not sure that it adds all that much either. The sharp color difference between the various features and the underlying green of the land was not as big a problem as I thought it would be once all the features went in. It does help a lot to identify desert regions so it'll probably stay in for that reason alone.