My first map - the Kingdom of Silarne

At least, the first one I didn't give up on and start over. This is pretty much by the numbers from Joseph Sweeney's excellent tutorial, plus a little fooling around to include political borders.

It could include quite a bit more detail, but this serves the needs of the moment, with the game currently in the barony of Dail Abhaich.

There's a higher res version here

Having used CorelDraw for many years, CC is . . . a pain in the behind to learn. The "choose a tool, then choose what to use it on" interface is rather like the Reverse Polish Notation of graphic programs, but I have to admit, the only thing CorelDraw does better is be what I'm used to.

Comments

  • Interesting use of coloured land for political divisions. Personally I just like to have coloured borders.

    I think the mountains are scaled to small. I think they could be much larger in aspect ration compared to the trees. I think it would also serve to make it less busy on that side of the map.

    Those are just my thoughts though.

    Good job.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Congratulations on your first map, Taustinoe, and welcome to the Profantasy forum :)

    You certainly have a unique and interesting style. Even though its common practice to use different coloured areas in political maps, I would never have thought of doing it by altering the colour of the land fills.

    Nice work :)
  • Very nice! I like the use of different color fills to represent the political divisions -- it has almost a watercolor effect to it. :)

    I agree with the comment above about the mountains: you've run into the same problem I did, there are so many and they're so small compared to the map that the area resembles a horned toad's back. I haven't found a good solution yet, but the suggestion to use fewer but larger-scaled symbols might be a good one.

    What are the dimensions of the map? 1000x800 miles?
  • For large mountain ranges, I use a gray bitmap fill or a gray color, and add just a few notable mountains onto the top of that. Like volcanoes, game historical areas, etc.

    Then when I'm mapping the areas next to the mountains, I use more mountain symbols.
  • I see what y'all mean about the mountains. It didn't look quite right, but I couldn't pin down exactly why. Is this better?

    Loopysue: The political markings are actually traced objects on the Political Borders Front sheet, with 20% transparency. That way, they can be turned off easily.

    Barliman: The scale ended up being 600 x 400 miles. Started off at half that (which was out of the tutorial video), then realized it needed to be twice as big. Fortunately, that's fairly easy to do. The scale bar is correct (although I guess you can't read it on the embedded image).

    JimP: I may try that later on, but for now, I'm fairly happy with this.

    Thanks for the feedback. One of the most valuable features of CC is the community.
  • Yep, there's quite a steep learning curve to CC3/CC3+ if you're not used to such programs. I came to it after a decade of using primarily MS Publisher for all my maps and diagrams, so there was a definite culture shock. I still use Publisher from time to time, but no longer for maps!

    You did better than me though, as it was only about half a year in that I discovered Joseph's amazing video tutorials... Those made life a LOT easier!

    Like the "multicoloured nations" look especially. And mountains? Well, they're one of those things you can play around with for ages and still not have them look quite right. Or maybe that's just me :)
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