# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Regional/World Mapping >  [Arden - A Fantasy/Dystopian World Map] Critiques welcome

## Schwarzkreuz

Hi, I am quiet new here and my english is not the best, but I hope this will be readable. I am a Designstudent in germany and for one of my Studyprojects I want to do a big Map of my Fantasy/Dystopian RPG world that I have done over the course of about 20 Years (started doing Maps in Kindergarden...). Well and also to push my Limits, I give myself exacly one week to finish and print the map. Well its a competition against my own lazyness, and I realy want to push my limits with this. Ok here is the first draft of the map. The final size is 90 x 120 cm, like 9 maps of the size that Joan Blaeu used for his Atlas Maior, which is also my main inspiration. Accompanied to the big Map shall be a series of diplomatic, historical and economic maps. Yes all in one week, never say never. ah, and yes the maps scale is somehow Sweden to Northafrica. 

First is the draft of the world.

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## Dain

Sounds promising, can't wait to see the outcome  :Wink: 
Good luck with the "one week self-contest", that's challenging!

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## Schwarzkreuz

Well I think I learn best under pressure. I have started to draw Mountains for about 7 h now. I will upload them when I have them scanned. Are there any good resources for 16.-17. Century Netherland Copperplate Style mountains?

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## bartmoss

I like the layout of the land, looking forward to seeing your updates.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Ok here are some of the Mountains from Todays time at the desk. Both are Copperplate-Style Images and referred to Joan Blaeu´s Atlas Maior. I will concentrate on a broad veriations of Mountains so I can use them on different locations with diversity in the erosionforces. I dont know, but I think these elements are some of the most significant landmarks for my approach. Next will be more mountains and some cliffs and rocks, my world is a dessertworld, so there is no Ocean but a deadly sanddessert. So the inhabitants will use steamtechdesert crafts and giant Steamengine-Trains tio cross the desserts. They are also "fishing" some creatures like the worms from Arrakis/Dune...

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## Dain

Mountains are gorgious,
Keep going this way and it's gonna be a masterpiece  :Wink:

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## arsheesh

This looks very promising!  I'm going to be watching this thread with interest.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## Schwarzkreuz

Thanks Dain and Arsheesh!

I have spend the last 2h of thinking and reading to come to a conclusion that I will have a Scale of 10Km per mm on the map, to remind the map will be 1200x900mm. Important was for me to have sources about how far a REALISTIC medival Rider can do, or a merchant etc. to have the distances in check. In the end the Main Empire will span about 5000 x 4000 km, with Letter Pigeons (1000km a day, with 4 days Delay of information at optimum and 10 Days at worst case) which is more on a mathematic way very important to my way of thinking about maps. its all math and informationstructure....

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## Galendae

Wow!  Those are the greatest Mountains I have seen this side of Peter Fenlon.  This has the potential to be even better!

Hurry up with an update!!!   :Smile:

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## Diamond

Those are indeed fantastic mountains.  I really need to improve my skills in that area...  And forests...   :Very Happy: 

Keep going!  This is going to look awesome.

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## Hugo Solis

The mountains look real wgood! Looking forward to see how this develops!  :Smile:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Nice Adventure Maps Hugo!

Well if people like the Mountains I could put some up as brushes. Still have to figure out the overall compositiona nd feeling. Ok well I have the day off, couse have to work today more and than I will work on it tonight again. More Mountains in the Copperplatestyle, next are Forest? I would like to make at least 4 Forest sets. Well well I am so damn slow  :Very Happy:

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## Lukc

Like everyone has mentioned, the mountains look mighty fine. Nice thin hatching, very technical style ... what kind of pens are you using?

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## Schwarzkreuz

I use normal 80g plain white paper and a Pilot G-Tec-C3 (0,3) Gel-Pen, its my favorite pen and I can realy say I have tried a hundred pens..... before finding these ones.

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## Ramah

Agree with all, those mountains look great. Really looking forward to seeing you progress with this. I've been contemplating giving myself some stricter deadlines and attempting to get quicker at mapping. I soooo slow.  :Frown:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Hi. I had only this 2 hour after work to work on my map. So the only progress today, except reading all the lovely tutorials here (on Train and bus with my smartphone, and looking at tiny maps with the zoomer....) is to finish about 15% of the Mountains, shown prior to this post. So I decided to make a Demo run of the first small set of brushes. (Well and also in a form I can use this piece for teh final map.)

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## Gallifreyan

That is impressive, I cant wait to see the completed map!

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## Dain

Impressive, indeed.
Love the style!

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## Schwarzkreuz

Thank you. I just dont ahve a clue how to collour them. Well but Thats comes later. I have to think about Forests first.... Singe or cluster.....?

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## Coyotemax

that's bloody awesome.

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## Freodin

Now that looks fantastic, and as I am also trying to achive that Atlas Major look, I am very interested to see how this developes.
(For all of those who don't yet own this fantastic peace of cartographic art: http://www.amazon.com/Joan-Blaeu-Atlas-Maior-1665/dp/3836524112/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317895959&sr=8-1 )

I don't know how closely you will be following the Blaeu style... but don't you think your impressive mountains will be a little too dominating?

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## Schwarzkreuz

Some mention a Forest Generator. Euere can i find it?

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## Dain

It's called Tree Thing, you'll find it there:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ight=Treething

But It won't fit your style imo, but still, it's a very good tool. At least, Ramah makes awesome maps with it  :Wink:

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## Ramah

> At least, Ramah makes awesome maps with it


Actually, other than one map (on which I did one deciduous forest and all the evergreen forests with the program - the rest I did by hand) I haven't used Treething myself. :S

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## Goblyns Hoard

Schwarzkreuz dein Bergen sind wirchlich toll mein freund - when you're done with the map (and not before - you've got enough to do as it is) if you could load them as brushes that would be really appreciated

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## Schwarzkreuz

Well I will try single trees, I have draw 38 single trees, of different kinds. I hoope this will make it. i am still unsure about forest masses, if its looking wierd with this. I have whole landscape of the size of A4 on the map covered with trees. But I dont want to do things digitals and to render them offline all would surely kill my hand. Hmmm I also did, farmland, dessert (just dots), rocky land, Grasland. I think I will overdue it with my icons.... too much.

UPDATE:

I start to hate trees..... the *makingmaps.net* Stylelist gives me plenty of Ideas... too much. My deathline runs till Monday nicht, so well I give my best.

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## Schwarzkreuz

After 3h of digitalisating and drawing brushes for my map I finaly realise that I am about to create ca. 500 - 600 Brushes. I als realised that there is a danger to lost track of what was what, becouse the preview of brushes in PS CS3 is still crap and disturd the form of the brushes to squares. Did anyone have experiences hoe to manage such an Moloch-Brushes-Set? I feel dizzy under the expection to handle this stuff. 

Yep, I know I got weird problems....


EDIT: By the way I hope I dont spam to much here? Its for me to keep track of my stream of coincesness and a Devellopers diary in a kind. I have to write a documentary for my projects so I am a lil bit overloading this thread without posting images so regulary, I hope this is ok?

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## Saule

It looks very promising! Good luck on your deadline  :Smile:

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## jfrazierjr

Honestly, this is the type of thing I would hope to see (assuming B/W only.. though color would be great if possible!) in a good novel.   I am quite disappointed when I read a book that has exploration elements but no map!!    Anyway, those mountains are just superb!

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## Ascension

Stream-of-consciousness posting is just fine here, I do it all the time.  I know that I can always come back to a certain thread and read the things that I have put down and never fear for losing them or forgetting them.  Plus, it also lets others into my way of thinking and seeing and sometimes they spot things I overlook - so it's like feedback for when I screw up.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Thanks for teh Feedback about the Mountains. With the exception for Cliffs and Canyons I have restricted myself that only Friday was making new Icons. Now I went over to the Continents Style, well I only have lots of Islands no real continent so... I have used some of the very helpfull tutorials to progress on making the alpha shape, than I just played with the Layer-Effects. Well I like the outcome. the texture is just random, I will go to the library and scan some of those books with a thick layer of dusk, the duskcovers should have a nice texture by now. Critiques are welcome if anyone see a way of Improvements.

A well yes and here is my second Iconsheet. There are still the ruins not scanned but you can see, how I devellop my icons. (partly inspired bye Ascions Butcher and some of Coyotemax's Maps and makingmaps.net) 

Ok well I will turn them into Brushes tomorrow.

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## Ascension

Looking nice, nothing else for me to say.  Keep up the good work.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Ok, here is the first Island with some Mountains on it. I am still unsure how this will look in the end but I am quiet happy with the outcome.



Its Name is Pulcher, it is also a not explored place in my worlds cartography, I suposed there is room than for speculations and descriptions of sailers and pirates who survived the sandsea. I tried this sector of ma 9 part map first, becouse there is not much landmasses here.

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## Freodin

Very impressive. But don't you think that your mountains might a little too dominating?

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## Lukc

I agree with Freodin. Maybe you should turn down the opacity on the mountains a bit or make them a bit more reddish/brownish in keeping with your terrain.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Ok I see what you both mean, I will try it out. Next will be some trees.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Ok here comes teh Next Level. I ahve given the Typography a lot of Time and come up with some very nice looking fonts. The one I have to share is the Roman Antiqua italic, it looks nearly perfectly like the italic small Letters used on Blaeu's Atlas Maior, for citynames. Also Improoved the Mountains opacity and set up more items. I will next insert Forest, ruins, citysigns and so on. Well Tomorrow is my Last Day, I have to finish stuff now  :Very Happy:

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## Diamond

Rather than decreasing the opacity on the mountains, what about increasing the stroke size on the landmasses?  That might even things out a bit, although it might not match the style you're going for exactly.  I do like your font choices and layout.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Ok, well I didnt make it realy in one week, but I have learned a lot. I hope I can finished everything um by tomorrow, that makes it 8 Days. It was realy intense to spend so much time learning different technics and seehing all the astonishing maps here at CG. I will start to make new maps as soon as I have this monstrum finished.  

It has the size of 17835px x 11929 px and the smalest font (citynames) is 6pt. 
I hope to be able to improve it and print it out soon, I realy want to hold this in my hands  :Very Happy:

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## bartmoss

I really like what you have so far, can't wait to see the finished map. - Also, it gives me the idea that we should organize the NaMaMaMo at some point, the National Map Making Month, as our version of NaNoWriMo.  :Razz:

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## rdanhenry

Given that there are two month-long mapping challenges, the Guild hardly needs a designated map-making month. There's always such a challenge available.

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## Coyotemax

coming along very nicely!!!

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## bartmoss

> Given that there are two month-long mapping challenges, the Guild hardly needs a designated map-making month. There's always such a challenge available.


I know, but NaNoWriMo is ... different. More insane, really. Anyway, it was a joke, don't mean to hijack the thread.

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## Schwarzkreuz

So here are some new Details. I added more unique Locations like those demonic craters to add to the overall feeling. It is interesting to play withe brushes to settle the Mountainranges and the overall Landscape. I think I will stick to this Style for a while.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Ok Most of the South got finished

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## Galendae

Ok, so that does look good!  

Minor thing that will help the Mts:  You need to shade the area around the mountains base to better blend into the terrain.  Some of the Mts look haphazardly placed without this affect.  I have no idea how to do this  :Smile:   But it would help an already very good map.

I believe their was a thread at one point dealing with this.  Anyone?

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## Schwarzkreuz

When i keep going on like this, I will start dream of inked Mountains. I am somehow not so sure anymor if this fastens up my map creationing so much anymore. On the otehrhand this maps is detailed as much as nine maps, so I still have lots to do. I would have never imagined this to be so time consuming. I think I already spend about 50h on this...

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## Ramah

> I would have never imagined this to be so time consuming. I think I already spend about 50h on this...


Welcome to the world of hand-drawn style fantasy maps.  :Frown:

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## Ramah

Btw.. had a really quick scan of the thread and didn't notice anyone flag this up but your rivers are all kinds of wrong. I hadn't looked that closely at your screenies before but now that I have examined them closely your rivers.... are kinda fubar. :S

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## Lukc

> Welcome to the world of hand-drawn style fantasy maps.


Time consuming it is ... imagine how it must have been when they had to do woodcut maps back in the 16th century or so!  :Very Happy:

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## Galendae

> Btw.. had a really quick scan of the thread and didn't notice anyone flag this up but your rivers are all kinds of wrong. I hadn't looked that closely at your screenies before but now that I have examined them closely your rivers.... are kinda fubar. :S


I agree.  I use one simple rule with rivers:  All rivers lead to a Sea or Ocean.  On rare occasion they spill into a lake or heath with no outlet to the sea, but rarely.

I am surprised the "River Police" did not jump this earlier  :Smile: 

Schwarzkreuz, you have some of the best raw talent of anyone I have seen on this website in awhile.  You just need to learn a few tricks and methods that will fine tune that talent.  Then you will be among the elite mappers here in no time.  Cartography can be painstaking work, requiring infinite patience and discipline, well, at least if you want to be good it does.

50 Hours?  I have been working on the same map for 6 months!!   I am a mess though and overly picky, I have redrawn sections multiple times, and I am still not happy.

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## Galendae

Double post, please delete.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Well I have looked through the Atlas Maior of Blaeu. It was and still is realy Hardcore.

@Ramah: I have seen all the Riverpolice stuff. I just dont get it how it should look like. I even read the tuts but still dont see how they should look like....

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## Schwarzkreuz

But Actually I dont have real oceans, what looks like sea is impassable Sanddesserts on a lowground. But yes even so my Rivers are crap, I know, just not how to do them right. Hmmm, but well it is the redo of a map I develloped 15 years since started my first RPG-Group. I will stick to this from nostalgia reasons, but will redo it in a later attemp to clear out the rivers.

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## Lukc

Oh my god ... I never knew about the Atlas Maior ... and there's a coffee-table version by Taschen available for just 50 euros O.O ... I'm so buying that.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Buy, the 2 Books edition from the Holland guy.... Dont remember the name, The Taschen Version is croped, so you can often not read teh names at all. 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Blaeu here are more or less the Maps of the Edition *before* the Atlas Maior Edition of ~1665

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## Schwarzkreuz

Ok here is an Update again. I will go to bed now. The Mountains are slowly getting done. Only 3 mayor Mountain areas in the North left and two Islands. Rest is Landscape stuff which comes more easy, it will be terrain stuff like gras and stones etc. Ok, well than the next Giant step will be the Fonts and than the Border.

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## Schwarzkreuz

I finaly finished the Landscapes and about to put the Fonts on it. I am also pretty much satisfied with the diversity of Landscape types but have found a lot of things I need to put more thinking into for later maps. Ok here are some new impressions on halfsize.

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## bartmoss

Looks good. In the small-scale, the forests in the North East seem to have repeated patterns tho.

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## Lukc

It does look good. And VAST. But I agree, the forests look like they're home to the Endlessly Repeating Clone Pine, a vicious invasive species from Pinus IV in the Conifera Quadrant.  :Smile:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Yes I know. I will redo them later. After the first Mountain Trauma came the Treenightmare

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## RainOfSteel

> First is the draft of the world.


This is my kind of map.  Great stuff.

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## Schwarzkreuz

You are welcome. I will upload some of the Brushes for non-comercial use, if anyone is interested.

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## Galendae

One of the best 1st maps I have ever seen here.  The sky is the limit Schwarzkreuz!  Great job!

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## Eilathen

A very own flavour and style. I like it! Looking forward to a high res version of the finished map  :Wink: 
I also am quite taken with the landmass-shape. Well done! Have some rep. .

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## BlueMoon

Great Map, very interested in those brushes .  :Smile:

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## Lukc

> Yes I know. I will redo them later. After the first Mountain Trauma came the Treenightmare


I have many hand made maps where I gave up after a while and just said, "Most of this land is wasteland and desert, trees are a rare and very localized phenomenon."

 :Razz:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Well thats exacly how my world look like, Dessert, everywhere. But Somehow I manage to spike it all up with lots of lanscape stuff. I think I have to have a little brake before I finishe it. Getting some distance, you know?

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## DgtlDrgn

Wow... just wow. This map looks amazing, I can't wait to see it finished!

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## Schwarzkreuz

Ok After a Short Break i want to Finish this Map. Some relacemebt for the trees and New Labels than borders

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## jbgibson

Schwarzkreuz, this is awesome!   The mountains, the cities & ruins, the whole thing.   Yeah, the trees could use more randomness, but that's no biggie.

I understand leaving some odd stuff in place for nostalgia's sake.  But your river issues look fixable.   For the basics of river paths, see these threads by Redrobes and by Midgardsormr.  

If your former sea basins are all (or mostly?) sand, you need to figure what would happen to rivers on the former land areas, when they fall into the sandseas.   It would be believable for the bottomlands to be hotter than the uplands, and for rivers to evaporate or soak in once they descend in some pretty awesome waterfalls.   Which would no doubt be fun to draw, by the way !

A few pointers - consider these as realism-suggestions from someone who couldn't do what you've drawn in a hundred years!  To the northwest of Mare Alba Ras you have what looks like a delta.  
<rats - it's not letting me insert these inline... refer to RiverFix1.jpg below>

Now, I'm not totally sure of your scale, but I'd say the biggest island is unlikely.  The red-circled split would not be in place long-term -- the water would go one way or the other, not both.  But if you detached the eastern branch something like the green route, during flood times the dotted line might connect the two watercourses - it just wouldn't be permanent.  Actually, a dotted line there would be pretty clear - it would typically mean a seasonal or intermittent route.  The green circle island might be okay, particularly since any map is generalized, not showing every last branch.  The yellow-circled islands are mighty big, but could be believable if the land there is very flat.  Again - their extent might best be thought of as cut by many, many additional passages.

.

To the southwest of Mare Alba Ras is a major river that could use help.  
< refer to RiverFix2.jpg below>

I'm assuming you intend it to flow northwards - that is from interior of the continent to the edge, which is usual.  One way to remember how two streams join is that they will more often form a Y, than a T.   And the angle where the two come together will be acute, and will point downstream.   A FEW could join at a right angle and still look right.   But a tributary will almost never come in angled upstream.   I marked the okay joins with green angles - see how they make the direction clear?  The yellow circles are the iffy ones.   The red circles mark most of the outright unlikely ones; I sketched in green the kind of tweak that would make them work like real rivers.  Right in the middle the biggest red circle marks an unlikely split and rejoin - something that happens seldom.   Small islands midstream - sure.   Immense ones 30 - 50 - 100 miles long - rarely would form and stay in place.   _Always_ one channel will eventually win out.  All you would have to do is detatch the upstream connection like I show in green.    You show the river dwindle as it reaches the coast.  It rather ought to be broadest there, like my sketched extension.

.

This third snippet has only a few real problems.  
< refer to RiverFix3.jpg below>

Like the last one, it probably ought to reach the ocean - your linework makes it look like it dwindles to nothing.  It won't _cross_ the coastal hills, but like the example path I show it could snake through a gap.   The OK tributary joins I show as green angles - pointing downstream.   The yellow ones are iffy - at pretty much right angles, a few would be OK.  The small red circle has two backwards-looking tributary joins, with corrections suggested in green.   Sure, at this scale the river linework is many, many times the width of a real river, and within that "2-mile-wide" bank line, there's room for the tributary streams to turn and do a proper join.   But the cartographer's job is to generalize enough to make the result _look_ right as well as be a decent representation of ground-truth.

.

The fourth bit has to be viewed before the forests to make sense.
< refer to RiverFix4.jpg below>

The river network itself is almost all right - breaking the four spots I have circled would make it obey the "rivers join downstream but do not branch downstream" rule.   A few of the joins slant "backward" - can you see those, based on the earlier examples?   The aspect of this river system that borders on implausibility is that those sources near opposite coasts don't have visibile high ground to drain _from_.   the broad yellow lines are where there has to be enough height to force water _away_ from the very nearby coast, and across to the opposite one.   Granted, there don't even have to be hills - cliffs at the shore and a gradual slope inland would do it.  In that case you could tweak at least the near shore to show a steep rise above what I think you're calling a sand sea?   The far coast is harder to symbolize <shrug> ... once the forest is placed it's pretty hard to see enough to feel bad about anyway, there :-).  The yellow circle I'm just not getting.   One source on the mountainside would not split into two.   And the "dwindling into desert" explanation would take some more symbology of some sort to work.   Is that kind of what you intend?

Ummmm - I don't suppose you intend that river there to run under the mountain?    If you do, then a more prominent dotted line to connect them is in order, or even little symbolized "tunnel openings".   If not, then you may want to shift one a little to keep them from lining up.

.

This last one I'm not sure how to fix.  
< refer to RiverFix5.jpg below>

It depends on what you intend.   Scraps of river don't just "happen", and die out.   In extraordinary circumstances one can have a river dwindle into a desert, or into salt flats/ marsh area.  And I know it would be tough to symbolize a gradual shallow basin in the middle of this continent.  Is that what you intend for the yellow areas I indicate? If so,  what you show is not effective.   Think: where's the water come from?  Or why doesn't the sea fill the interior if it's low?   I would expect the middle of the continent to be at least a little above sea level, so the green arrows are places I would expect outflow.   If you do want to show something entering a desert or basin and vanishing, intermittent-stream dotted lines might work.   You could even get away with just connecting the east end of that northern isolated network to the little lake near my arrow.   Use dotted lines at several places if you like - as an example, these days N. America's Rio Grande and Colorado rivers pretty much vanish before they hit the oceans, BUT in occasional flood time there would definitely be flow all the way to the sea.

If that northern set of channels _does_ flow eastward, there's a few wrong-way connections to tweak the angle of.

If your whole world is drying up there's just less moisture around to make rain in the first place.   Even though you don't have to figure a full system of cliamte and weather and winds and ocean currents, you might ought to think about what would encourage deserts, or what would form rivers.

The sand sea idea is delightful.   I take it that's what is happening at the east end of Oceanus Desperae?   Thing is, it looks there like the original shore has been lifted, rather than the sea level falling -- otherwise you'd get either shoreline cliffs all over the place, or some kind of indication worldwide that the coasts used to be farther inland.

Like I said - there's nothing wrong with this map that isn't easily fixable.   And there's so much right with it that I'm not going to wait til it is done to give you some rep: very nicely done!

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## ravells

This is staggering in it's scale and detail. Fabulous work!

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## Piscivorous

> I am surprised the "River Police" did not jump this earlier .


River Police can kiss my backside. All that water in the Underdark has to come from somewhere.  :Smile:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Thank you jbgibson for your huge amount of help there, and thanks to all who like my map. I am very sorry I didnt finished it by now. It all got me so depressed that I couldnt touch it since end of October. You guys now, Its a Map that I worked on for 2 decades now, as a little kid I invented lots of the areas and so on. But all the things that went wrong at the time making these grande edition of the map depressed and freaked me out. I will work on it again now, just found a trunk full of my old maps at the holydays at my parents place, my old room. So I am about to adding new stuff. And finalize it now.

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## Alex

This is an outstandingly fantastic map! I love hand drawn maps the most, so pleasing to the eye.  :Smile: 

Great work! I can't wait to see the finished version! 

+rep!

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## Elzevir

Great job ! I think i mumbled more interjections than i do usually when i'm impressed. Don't discourage yourself and keep on !

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## Schwarzkreuz

Thank, I try my best

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## maxsdaddy

Just now peeped your thumbnail from October with the Mountains as I was delving into this thread, that alone was rep worthy. Great work. Thanks.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Here is an updated Look on how the Labels are on the nearly finished version

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## Lukc

It looks fantastic, BlackCross ... I love how the map is *just* 2.5 GB heavy at present  :Very Happy:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Oh I didnt even noticed it.

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## silverhead

Hadn't seen this map yet. Wow! Really impressive. The detail is staggering, to say the least. Can't wait to see the final version.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Its finished  

A long Journey ends here  :Very Happy:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Its finished  

A long Journey ends here  :Very Happy:

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## sreynders

you've inspired me to redo my map for my dnd campaign, this is one hell of a map! loving it!

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## T.A.Roe

As a newbie here, I discovered this thread first. *Very impressed with your skills.* The progression of images really helped me understand your technique and it was great to see how you learned and progressed in skill as you moved forward with your design. Thanks for sharing your talent.

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## Schwarzkreuz

When I have time, one of my projects would be doing a proper tutorial on my process of mapmaking. I am sure that would be fun.

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## - Max -

> When I have time


 :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:  I always say that too

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## Schwarzkreuz

5 years has past. Time for the annual revival of redoing the World of Arden.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Hi Guild, here are the first rough sketches of the map and its layout. The Orientation has shiftet as well as some locations and a lot of the islands have undergo intense revisions. Now, even the rivers flow more or less correctly  :Razz:  After a few years I am drawn back to Arden and hope to find inspiration here in the Guild on more time. Like over five years ago I would like to share my progress and am interested for your feedback. 

- Vandel

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## Eilathen

Welcome back, SK! Good to see you!

And wow, that is a biiig departure from the original map. I think "the orientation has shiftet as well as some locations..." is the understatement of the year  :Very Happy:   :Wink:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Wellllll, I had a break in my campaign for the world since the map was done 2012. Now I am revising the whole world and skip some obvious mistakes in design (crazy rivers, block-style europe shape). Now I hope to turn it into a world with a more mature design, reflecting my devellopement as a gamer, mapper and artist, since I develloped the core of the map over 20 years ago.

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## Eilathen

Very much looking forward to it. Even if i liked that "old" map a lot, btw! I don't think it was block-style Europe shape...the rivers...well, you know...  :Wink: 

Btw, any chance you're going to post the maps you did since you kind-of-left-us here at the CG? What were you up to in the mean-time, map wise? I know i'd like to see it!

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## Schwarzkreuz

Well, I am a fincancial manager specialise in Board Games and crowdfunding by now. Beside that I am responsible for new maps of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG line. Lots of smaller and bigger commissions in the mean time.

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## Falconius

Very excited to see you work on this.  Can't say much about the plan except that it has a very appealing silhouette.

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## Ilanthar

Hey, welcome back SK! 

I'm very interested to see what you'll do next (as many others, I'm sure)  :Smile: .

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## Schwarzkreuz

> Hey, welcome back SK! 
> 
> I'm very interested to see what you'll do next (as many others, I'm sure) .


Wellll....I am as fast as always  :Very Happy: 

One of the single sheets from the map, it shows the typographic elements for these maps.

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