Hi Paramenides This looks like a pretty good start! The only thing I'd suggest is that the poles don't look nearly stretched enough. Well, specifically the continents on plate 4 and 11 don't; the rest look ok.
So I had made another thread previously about how I couldn't ever be satisfied on a map that I made for this worldbuilding project that I was working on. I became dissatisfied with that map even though I was happy with the landmasses, so I thought to start from the core up, or sort of. I've been busy with a bunch of other things as well and a lot of things have happened since I posted that thread. So I thought it would be better to start up a new one.
For this map, I took the advice of making it an equirectangular projection. I drew out where the equator was and vaguely where the tropics lines would be (I really don't know where to put the tropics lines, though I know for an earthlike world, they should be at 23.5 degrees north and south of the equator. Photoshop is not good at finding degrees, so I just guessed.) I started out this project by drawing out tectonic plates, though I haven't quite mapped the direction in which they'll be moving. On a new layer, I drew out land masses in the general shapes that I would like. It's not all super detailed yet, that'll come later. The next step is probably be mapping out the mountains and biomes after I figure out the directions in which the plates are moving. I'm rather fond of temperate forests and would like a particularly large one somewhere on here, as that is a very important landmark for this world. This is where I have trouble with the map, though. I haven't taken much geography so I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject, and most of what I've learned about geography in fact comes from this site and reading reference links.
But yeah, in order to get the amounts of forests I wanted, I was told to move the landmasses closer to the poles. Oh, and another thing that was particularly important to have in this map was archipelagos and islands like the Caribbean, Japan and the Philippines. This was hugely inspired by Chrono Cross's setting, as I really really enjoy that islander culture. Also, the humans haven't quite plowed through the forests yet in this world, so they would probably be fairly abundant as well.
Anyway, that's about where I'm at with this map so far. Attaching the plates map and the continental map. They're both 1000x2000 pixels, though the original resolutions are 3600x7200 pixels.
EDIT: Adding all screenshots for the wip's.
anotherthing.png coastallines.png
blacknwhitegrid.png mountainlocations.png
mountain.png rough biomes.png
merged.png
Last edited by Paramenides; 05-04-2012 at 02:01 AM.
Hi Paramenides This looks like a pretty good start! The only thing I'd suggest is that the poles don't look nearly stretched enough. Well, specifically the continents on plate 4 and 11 don't; the rest look ok.
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
My finished maps | My deviantART gallery
My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
Ah, good point. I'll take a look at fixing that, I'm mostly working on messing with the more detailed landmasses at the moment. And I might have a little problem trying to stretch out the southern continent, but I'll work on that.
Detailed the shapes of the land. I had a little issue with trying to stretch out some of the landmasses to more accurately do an equirectangular projection. Not quite sure how I feel about the archipelago/island bits, but it's decent enough for what I'm trying to go for. Next will be mountains and biomes for sure.
blacknwhitegrid.png
That looks much better!
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
My finished maps | My deviantART gallery
My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
Thank you!
Further progress on the map. Very rough mountain placements and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about where they are on the map. Now I'm mostly procrastinating on the biomes because I really don't know much about where they should go, so I detailed the ocean quite a bit. Suggestions on biome placements would be very much appreciated.
Also thank you in advance to anyone who helps out.
mountainlocations.png
Excellent work on the sea floor bumps! I also like the font you are using. Look forward to watching this one progress.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Thank you!
EDIT: Also I just realized what you meant by font. LOL It's actually just my handwriting.
Last edited by Paramenides; 05-03-2012 at 06:14 PM.
Okay, did a very rough layout of the biomes on here as well as mountains. Like, supremely rough. Also nevermind my stupid sloppy handwriting, it's gross and really sloppy and gross.
Critiques please?
merged.png rough biomes.png