Maioria

Miafeya

Here is my completed map of Maioria ☺. It is created in Campaign Cartographer 3 Black & White and the place names and other finer details finished off in GIMP.

The map is for my book, Dark Moon Rising, and thus only shows the continents of The Known World. The people of Maioria believe that the north is so cold it can only be a Kingdom of Ice, the south so hot it is a Kingdom of Fire, the east such a vast ocean that only an Ocean Kingdom exists.

To the west there are myths and rumors of a huge continent, which they call The Unchartered Lands, but no one has ever made it past the Shadowlands to find it - or if they have they have never returned to tell of what they have found.

For the purposes of the book I have only detailed those places mentioned in the book. With each book that I publish (there are six in total) I shall put more details on the map for that book – plus a ‘zoomed-in’ map of certain continents and possibly cities.

As you can see the map is created at quite a ‘high’ level (as in zoomed out), with not much space to put a lot of detail except for the major places and rivers. Also I am constrained to the book dimensions of 12x9 inches (for a double spread) and it was tricky to get everything in. It was also very difficult to legibly detail the places in black ink on a black and white background. Using GIMP to fade out the background under the text achieved this to some extent.

I spent months trying to create this map in colour in CC3 and GIMP but realized converting it to grayscale would not be good enough for the book – which is naturally printed in black and white. So I again started from scratch and re-created what I had in CC3 black & white. Unfortunately it does not look as ‘pretty’ as a coloured map, and it’s my first map, but I do hope to improve in time.

Anyway, thanks so much for your help (I have been reading this forum for about 6 months), your shared knowledge made this map possible ☺. Please leave comments if you wish.

Thanks again

Miafeya

Leviathus

Fantastic map!

Monsen

Nice map, but I have one concern if you are going to publish this on a two-page spread in a book. In almost all the books that I have read doing this with their maps, the center of the map is difficult to see/read because of the book binding. From your map, it seems like the page split will go right through important parts.

Miafeya

Hey Leviathus, Monsen,

Thanks for looking at my map and taking the time to comment .

Yes re splitting the map in two was always on my mind. Initially Frayon was bang in the centre with Carvon, the capital city, about to be split in two. I had considered making it fit a single page but it was too difficult to get things legible (but I am still playing around with this option). There was quite a lot of sea to the right and in the end I decided to shuffle everything to the left. So now the map should split to the right of Carvon, a lesser evil in my mind.

Either way it was always going to be difficult but I have seen some good examples of other maps in fantasy novels where the two halves bleed just enough to be able to be legible. It just depends if I am skilled enough to achieve this, lol. What I am considering doing / including in the book is a 'zoomed-in' map of the continents that did get split, this would not be too difficult to do at the cost of just a page or two.

Thanks for your thoughts, much appreciated .

Miafeya

Ralf

I really love that map, wonderful work!

Dogtag

I particularly like the ocean-wave fill bordering the land, while the seas themselves are simply blank. That's a nice effect.

~Dogtag

Miafeya

Thanks Ralf and Dogtag . I didn't know how best to do the ocean bits so I spent the time doing the little wave effect thing . nice to know the map is ok for the readers.

Miafeya