Continent to Provincial mapping with Political Border
I've only had CC3 for about a month but I've been completely enamored with the maps being produced and shared on the forum. After spending a lot of time figuring out the technical aspects of the program, I spent even more time exploring the artistic side. This is my first attempt to create a continent map for a D&D setting inspired by the Magic: The Gathering multiverse, using Mike Schley's Overland style. I have tried my best with the dimensions to make the maps fit to a standard A4 sheet legibly. The continent map is essentially done on a regional map scale and really only meant to show the big picture of provinces in relation to each other and the continent as a whole. The details that are there are meant to keep it from looking flat and boring. The provincial maps are literally a close up of the continent map to make features more discernible and to allow the labeling of more universal features such as capital cities, mountain ranges, enormous/famous landmarks, cross-provincial trade routes, things that would prove useful for crossing the province without really exploring much of it- ideal for travelling wares.
Additionally and in similar fashion, I'll be making regional maps that go into further detail on the province map. There I will add more local features such as small towns or settlements, the local roads and water sources, outposts, caves, and other known areas of potential interest for campaign use. As the campaign progresses, players may add their own notes and landmarks to this base map that were missed, omitted or otherwise absent as they explore to allow creative license. And capital cities being as large as they are, may also have maps as well. Since I'm still new and pretty much don't know what I'm doing, I'd like the insight of more experienced users to tell me if I'm doing anything wrong or if this plan is going to run into potential problems, particularly with print scaling. As I said, ideally these will be able to be printed on standard A4 sheets.
Otherwise, I'd also love any artistic or geographical criticisms as well as tips. Also, I wonder if there's anything I've done that you yourselves would have done differently.
Additionally and in similar fashion, I'll be making regional maps that go into further detail on the province map. There I will add more local features such as small towns or settlements, the local roads and water sources, outposts, caves, and other known areas of potential interest for campaign use. As the campaign progresses, players may add their own notes and landmarks to this base map that were missed, omitted or otherwise absent as they explore to allow creative license. And capital cities being as large as they are, may also have maps as well. Since I'm still new and pretty much don't know what I'm doing, I'd like the insight of more experienced users to tell me if I'm doing anything wrong or if this plan is going to run into potential problems, particularly with print scaling. As I said, ideally these will be able to be printed on standard A4 sheets.
Otherwise, I'd also love any artistic or geographical criticisms as well as tips. Also, I wonder if there's anything I've done that you yourselves would have done differently.
Comments
My only suggestion is:
I can see you have fully grasped the Left to Right, Top to Bottom placement of the terrain features. So continue to keep that in mind as you consider how you progress, since your intention is to "piece-meal" the regions.
Great work, though!
At the suggestion of my partner, I increased the amount of detail on the Boros provincial map to create an imaginatively bigger area. Sometimes more structure serves to bolster the imagination rather than hinder it. I have to say, I'm quite pleased with how much bigger Boros seems with the added number of landmarks and diversity. Although there are a few patches that need a bit of tuning, I'm pleased to say that I'm just about to the point where I'm ready to mark this one down as finished. Next I'll probably update the continental map to reflect the new provincial map and I can focus on making 1:100,000 regional scale maps centered on the cities. I may or may not decide to map the actual cities themselves, but I will likely put it off in favor of more practical maps for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Other provinces can be worked on over the years to come as a longstanding hobby.
As you can see, I've neglected to name the roads. This is because I think it's more practical to assume that major roads are going to be noted with signs and the map serves primarily for perspective. Other landmarks I neglected were lakes and smaller mountains to avoid cluttering the map with too many labels. Again, comments and suggestions are appreciated!
My visual take on it was that the hills it flows through are lower level than the forest and mountains it came from, and then the sea is lower than that.
IMO.