My first map!
MatthewBertram
🖼 5 images Traveler
I finally created my first ever map in CC3+. I still feel that I'm not overly familiar with the program (it will come in time, still very much in my CC3+ infancy when it comes to learning the ropes) but I am incredibly proud of what I made. Haven't explored a new artistic medium in years, and I'm very fortunate it came in the form of a map made in CC3+.
I closely followed this tutorial on the ProFantasy Software YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st_MEY3I12o
There were a lot of struggles along the way, I ever so famously couldn't get the hang of tracing (Thank you @Dogtag for the helpful video, and you @Royal Scribe for posting it!) as well as running into a couple of hiccups with the symbol menu (thank you @Loopysue !) however I chose to be resilient instead of ignorant and put my mind to the task.
I can see why all of you make up this community, it's incredibly fascinating and oddly therapeutic creating these maps and making friends with each other. It's an artform I never expected to thrust myself into, let alone enjoy. I'm excited for what the future holds for my future in cartography, whether it remains worlds that I create on my own, in collaboration with others, or possibly recreating real world places.
As for the map itself, I decided to use the Greek language as the basis for naming the different regions/areas of the map (seriously, does Greek ever NOT look/sound beautiful?) and they're words like "city" or "area" simply translated into Greek. I think my next map will be a central island with a heavy jungle and tropical theme as well as several smaller islands, as opposed to effectively a peninsula connected to a landmass and a few smaller islands (9, if my count is correct).
Errors I made/problems I encountered:
-Made the chasm in the upper right hand corner at an awkward/weird angle.
-Used too many of the snowy hills in regions where it wouldn't make sense given the climate (right next to the jungle warm areas and deserts, for instance)
-In the Periochi Tou Metro and Notia Poli districts I couldn't bring the two bridges the roads overlap to the front for some reason, I think I'll just not draw the road through them and rather just in the future cut them off before the bridge and draw it from the end of the bridge instead.
-The northernmost island in Kataprasina Dasi has a weird sort of cut to it on the south side of the island.
-Will note to start adding trees and such from the north heading southward, as I went all over the place in some regions and it shows the trunks of the trees overlapping the leaves of the trees south of it. (The keep on the easternmost island in the Evoionos body of water, for example)
-Didn't connect some rivers all the way to the coastline (the middle river of the Tolmiros peninsula doesn't connect fully to the Evoionos body of water, for example) and also need to have something added for the end of the river. A dam, for example.
-Didn't think about the colors I was using for some of the symbols. The rock features inbetween the islands of Evoionos for example, are the same color as the water. I should have made them gray. I don't knock myself for experimenting (that's what learning is all about, anyways) but as I progress I will continue to be more mindful of the color palette I choose.
-Did not really pay much attention to the positioning of certain symbols similar to the chasm I mentioned in my first bullet point, the sandbar in the northernmost part of Oroseira, for example.
-Did the same thing with the goofy sea monster. :P
-Similar to the second point I made regarding climate, I had the northernmost island of Oroseira a snowy like region with snowy trees and nothing else, even though I put cacti at the same latitude.
Thank you all so much for welcoming me into your lovely community! Here's a high quality version of the image via Imgur (due to the forum's image size restraints, but here's a picture fitting in those restraints as well) https://imgur.com/a/aeeP40x
Comments
Congratulations on your first map, Matthew! It's pretty cool.
In fantasy lands you can have anything wherever you please, as long as it makes sense to you.
Great work! I like the islands in the bay. They add to the Greek theme.
It's exciting, isn't it? Not everybody understands why a mapmaker might get excited about this stuff, so that's why this community is important to me.
You can add higher-quality images and FCW files in your personal gallery here on the forums. I've not done that much, but I understand that some people use it pretty well.
In the right corner of the map there is a bridge over the river, where does it lead?
Congratulations on your first map! It’s looks great. Ans I agree with you: it is oddly therapeutic and calming. I like that it’s simultaneously exercising my creativity and my analytical/problem solving sides.
The red arrow or the blue arrow one? The red arrow one is a broken bridge leading to an abandoned village, the blue one leads to the rest of the northern lands.
The map is beautiful, is it ready or are you still going to add more details? Congratulations!
Oh heavens no, just going to keep making maps and work on different things over time.