MAP Crit requested - Final proof is done!

[Eosin the Red]

Scroll down to the bottom to see the finished deal.

Thanks for the help guys & gals.

 

[Eosin the Red]

I guess it helps when it is attached.

 

[eigam]

Hey nice map. It's a good start, I like the mountains. My only crit is bump up the res to maybe a 72 dpi high, to med JPG. The map looks a bit too bitmapped, but other than that it looks great. Keep it up and post more.

 

[jgbrowning]

Some comments/thoughts.. I put in green lines to help me think about air flow.


1: Looks like you've got a river going through a mountain chain.

2: This looks odd to me. Kinda like a Scottish Loch, but it looks like you've got either a continental separation of salt water or a large freshwater lake draining into both the nothern and southern oceans. I'd pick one to have it drain into if its a lake, and if it's a continental separation, you should have some hills perhaps mountains around it.

3: Mountain chains with appreciable water on both sides of some mountain chains. This happens but one side will tend to be significantly drier than the other.

4: This large area may be fairly dry as it's the continent center. This may not be the case, however, because you may have adequate air flow off the oceans.

5: Some rivers seem to be intersecting at 180 degree angles. Although this could be because of the map scale, most rivers don't meet head on.

Other than these nitpicks it's a very nice looking map.

joe b.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Some comments/thoughts.. I put in green lines to help me think about air flow.


1: Looks like you've got a river going through a mountain chain.

2: This looks odd to me. Kinda like a Scottish Loch, but it looks like you've got either a continental separation of salt water or a large freshwater lake draining into both the nothern and southern oceans. I'd pick one to have it drain into if its a lake, and if it's a continental separation, you should have some hills perhaps mountains around it.

3: Mountain chains with appreciable water on both sides of some mountain chains. This happens but one side will tend to be significantly drier than the other.

4: This large area may be fairly dry as it's the continent center. This may not be the case, however, because you may have adequate air flow off the oceans.

5: Some rivers seem to be intersecting at 180 degree angles. Although this could be because of the map scale, most rivers don't meet head on.

Other than these nitpicks it's a very nice looking map.

joe b.

Hey Joe,

Thanks for the crits mucho appreciated.

1. Correct. It is a huge gorge...can that happen? I was thinking something along the lines of the Royal Gorge in Colorado/New Mexico. Good call...If it does not work I will remove it.

2. It is a continental sepration and the final will have the whole area as hills and some sparse mountains. It is OLD.

3. Good call - I will need to remove some of those rivers.

4. The central lands "The Middle Kingdoms" does have some problems with dryness and is largely plains like Nebraska, Oklahoma, & Texas.

5. Thanks for the tip on the rivers.

Randy.

PS - love your books.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Here is the adjusted map....Mainly removed rivers and added scratch marks for the hills.

Thanks again.

Randy

 

[Eosin the Red]

It helps to attach.

 

[Eosin the Red]

No really, I mean it.

 

[jgbrowning]

Hey Joe,

Thanks for the crits mucho appreciated.

No probs. I love maps.

1. Correct. It is a huge gorge...can that happen? I was thinking something along the lines of the Royal Gorge in Colorado/New Mexico. Good call...If it does not work I will remove it.

Its possible as long as the rivers been there during the uplift period it can cut its way through mountains. It's rare, but as long as you're planning on making it a cool, unique area, no probs.

2. It is a continental sepration and the final will have the whole area as hills and some sparse mountains. It is OLD.

Cool.

3. Good call - I will need to remove some of those rivers.

You may not have to remove them all because at the scale you're going for there may not be that much of appreciable difference for mapping reasons. But on any smaller maps, there should be significantly fewer smaller rivers/tributaries on the dryer side than on the wetter side of the mountains.

4. The central lands "The Middle Kingdoms" does have some problems with dryness and is largely plains like Nebraska, Oklahoma, & Texas.

That's probably dead on.

5. Thanks for the tip on the rivers.

Randy.

PS - love your books.

Thanks!

joe b.

 

[Conaill]

Hey, if you have jgbrowning himself jumping in, why would you need me anymore?

Very good advice from Joe. He definitely has a better eye for airflows etc. than me. You may want to follow his airflow arrows to decide which side of the mountains to put the rivers on. If so, for area 3c the rivers would be on the south side. The large northern chain would have rivers mainly on the west (ocean) side, and some in the southeast. And the mountain chain just south of center wouldn't have any large rivers on the soutwestern coast.

Couple more river nitpicks: You have a few rivers which flow from close to one end of a continent, to outflow on the opposite end. That kind of situation is highly unlikely. You may want to draw lines of equal altitude (iso-whatchamacallits ), that should make it obvious where you have problems.

The big river complex in the middle was a serious offender in the original map: see how one branch starts all the way up north, but then it flows out all the way down south? You've truncated those branches a bit in the latest map, but you could shorten them even more (making area 4 more of a desert area... every fantasy world needs a good desert! ) There's a large mountain lake near the continental separation, which then flows out all the way to the east. Probably want to remove that lake, given the airflows that area would have very little moisture coming in, and due to its location the lake collects water from only a very small area.

In the northwestern region... that huge C-shaped lake seems well above sea level. Yet there is a river that starts nearby and flows out towards the east. May want to increase the distance between those somewhat. On the west side of the mountain chain, there are two rivers which start very close together, one flowing south and a smaller one flowing west. Rivers don't typically start that close together.

The area around 1 seems very convoluted. (I think you'd need a real geologist to work that one out. So take the following with some big grains of salt!) I don't have a problem with the Gorge, but I would be more comfortable if it were more inland. Right now, that river starts awfully close to the bay to the northwest. The uplifted area seems a strange shape, and too close to the ocean. Then there's that river complex which flows from the bay, east towards the continental separation (may want to scrap that one altogether, the hills around the continental separation would get in the way anyway).

Other than that, great map! I love the variety of land shapes and features. A lot of the nits I picked on could easily be ascribed to "freaks of nature", of course. Please don't take the size of my response as any sort of indication of poor quality of your work. You did a very good job. I'm just trying to be thorough.