It's really nice! I like the colours so far.

Kinda huge, if you ask me, but it's still nice. I like how it actually has a continental shape to it, aka it's not just a bunch of vaguely deformed circles. You should put in some more details, like shading on the mountains and stuff. Maybe stick a bunch of names on them, like those maps you see at the beginning of some fantasy novels. Add some pictures of mythical creatures. Crinkle the edges like old parchment paper if you can. Create a royal seal and put it in the corner.

It also looks like you just went around the border of your map and added those irregularities to it. Don't be afraid to leave some parts smooth while making others really jagged! Judging from the number of towns and mountain ranges, there's going to be a huge variety of terrain, like maybe rivers, plains with texture, deserts, cliffs, etc.

Anyway, nice job! Can't wait to see it finished.

updated ever so slightly, got rid of alot of the jagginess on edges and made the border lines more consistent

Well, look at some references to see how old maps were drawn. For one thing, the coastline is often painted with its own shade. You may also want to use slightly different shades on the mainland, to illustrate slight differences in climate. (i.e. rocky areas fade towards brown or grey, areas with particular amounts of vegetation are extra green, etc)

You could also see about giving the sea some texture, even adding small sketches of seamonsters and ships, as old illustrators / cartographers usually did to keep the ocean parts interesting.

Looks like you've only used one type of mountain-symbol. I think it would look a lot more interesting if you used different sizes and slightly different shapes (without breaking the style). For example, check out the map of Middle Earth, which even adds shade to the mountains.

Also, although I'm no geologist, it seems that the shapes of the land could be improved by making a 'split' where the rivers meet the ocean (again, see references). I notice you don't have rivers. Maybe you want to add that. Maybe not.

Finally, you should find images of a million different scrolls and banners on Google. Just check those out.


Edited by CELS - 30 August 2011 at 3:38pm