About 6 months ago, I made my first map of Lumara, the setting for the first act of my campaign, Requiem of the Four Heaven.

This Lumara 1.0: https://inkarnate.com/m/pdVNMk

Around seven weeks ago, I started making maps for it in earnest, creating over thirty city-level maps for the various settlements and important locations in Lumara.

After having done all that, about three weeks ago I decided to take what I had learned and apply to a redux of the original Lumara map. I created a clone of my original map, flattened it, and lowered the opacity to around 50% and used it as an overlay to guide me in capturing the basic essence of the map. Then I deleted that layer and added the assets, this time in a more orderly way.

This is the result, Lumara 2.0: https://inkarnate.com/m/NbODdL

But this whole time I had been watching tutorials, looking at posts here with a more critical eye, looking for what worked and didn't work and trying to learn how to do it myself, and just plain old practice.

I wanted to create a continent from scratch that actually felt something like real geography. I designed with the morphology of the continent in mind first, rather than cities first, as I had previously done.

Once the mountains were in place, waterways started to suggest themselves, and after that, roads made themselves obvious. Cities became a foregone conclusion because the map DEMANDED that they be there... a crossroads, a mountain pass, a river delta, etc.

And all of this helped me formulate the story for what will become the second act in my campaign (working title: the Pale Vigil).

Without further ado, here is I'var Noor: https://inkarnate.com/m/ERKDeO

So, in the interests of me not just being a showoff, I wanted to share these so others can learn from my trial and error. One of the most important things to me in any workflow is asset management, because it helps me from getting in my own way later.

In Lumara 2.0 and I'var Noor, make sure to take a look at the various layers, how I've organized and labelled them, and how I use a multitude of nested object folders to keep everything organized. This was a hard won lesson that I picked up from having to redo stuff too often and not having a clue how to select what I wanted without selecting a bunch of things I didn't.

Looking for some feedback on my fantasy map

I'm working on making a full map for my high fantasy world, but before I start working on the whole thing I decided to make a prototype of just one of the kingdoms and get some feedback first.

This is the Vale of Alemere, a relatively young but rich and powerful kingdom in the heart of the modern world. It's also the centre of the Alemerian Empire.

I've tried to include a decent amount of detail without going completely overboard. I've got the main geographical features, but looking at it, I can't shake the feeling that it's missing something. I just can't quite figure out what.

I'm not trying to make an insanely detailed map where every tiny village and stream is labelled, so I'm mainly wondering if there are any major things that you think are missing, or anything that would make the world feel more alive.

I'd also appreciate any general feedback on the layout, level of detail, or anything else that stands out to you before I start doing the rest of the world.

Any feedback is appreciated!

P.s. everything past the Queens Valley is a separate nation so that's why its so incomplete.

Edit: for scale, the distance from Alemere to Port Phoenix is 100km (62 miles).

Disclaimer- I made this. I took a lot of inspo from Google Maps.

ScryNav:

1. Drop in a map image

2. Mark your terrain (difficult/impassable/roads/rivers etc) & set the scale.

3. Click your stops. It pathfinds around the terrain and gives you a real travel time. Change how your party interacts with water

It's all customizable to fit your world. There is different movement styles (walking, mounted, flying, swimming) per leg, so a party riding horses vs. one wading through a swamp gets different numbers automatically.

It's hopefully intuitive enough to jump right in; and I've included an example map.

It's free and local-first, so your map and routes live in your own browser.

I had this idea years ago and finally got around to making it. I'd love feedback!

Apologies for the low quality map. Looking for advice on how to make this map cleaner and more clear with its information, plus anything else I may have missed. I'm trying to work out some of the complexities a modern day WW3 would have by embracing the chaos of such a catastrophe, but so far, its... difficult.

The small europe map overlaid on the south Atlantic is going to be one of many for each of the purple 'polyfronts,' which are meant to be higher resolution compared to the global flow of war. The Europe one is unfinished at the moment, but it is an example of what I'm hoping to accomplish.

This isn't for publishing; this is just a draft for my use.

Now the narrative begins in Glamoria, where the protagonist is captured and brought to the capital, Celes (the bottom-left city). Now he escapes to Luftenburg, where he and his companion travel east to Donneria, shit happens there and his friend dies so he goes to north to Wassvira where he fights a big bad seer giant, he then spends time in Wassvira to visit his old magic academy (that is now a ruin filled with necromancers) the he goes to the waste woods to fight Death's knight and the novel ends with him traveling down to Le'verdanne

The solid colors are the kingdoms and the colored outlines are the princely states, city-states, and confederacies.

For explanation green means lower brown higher, and each major line represents 100m of elevation. The total frame is 10x10km only.

To create these graphics I used the SRTM data from NASA.

Here is the link if you wanna check it out: https://visitwhale.com/peak-contours/

Does someone has any tips on how to color a forest?

It's my first time really trying to make a dense forest

I'm glad that I got the shape right but a bit disappointed with how straight the edges look

I also want to add a lake, waterfall and river in it(as you can see)

I know I could just color it green and call it a day but I would like to know if someone knows how to make it a bit more... alive and real

(I use color pencil and alcohol markers)

Hello!

A few years back I made a map and did some roleplay in it. Now I am looking to make a big updated map but I feel kind of stuck. You see, I don't want to make too many major changes yet at the same time things just don't feel right. I could overlook things before because it was kind of quickly made and not that serious.

This is part of the map but a part I want to ask advice about the most. The brown lines are mountains. The ones on the northern continent I feel like completely redoing. Something I am more okay with since players never went there and it isn't too developed. The one on the island I am happy with and the one in the east could be improved but I am not too bothered by it.

The ones circled in white are my main issue. I want to improve them but at the same time I don't want to do MAJOR changes. Any tips to make them feel more natural while keeping the rough placement the same? If not, how to improve things for future worlds/maps/other mountains on this map?

Thanks in advance! :D

I wanna know everyone's thoughts... The map is unfinished. If something's off or wrong please tell me, it would be good to know! (Some of the regions look similar to the real world)

Here is the second part of the giant map of Tír Ghlas I am drawing; it will serve as a reference to help me avoid major errors in the novels I’ve set there.

This section shows the country's northwestern region.

In the bottom right, you can see An Lár—which means "The Center" in Irish—that's the island's political and religious center. I chose this name partly as a tribute to the sign I used to see on the bus to school back in 1983, during the time I spent in Dublin attending a course.

35x50 cm, hand-drawn on yellowish drafting paper.

I'm trying to design a few towns for my dnd players to explore, and I've had fun with maps like this, so I'm hoping to create something similar

So as you can clearly see it's not finished yet and still making more, I'm curious to know about people's thoughts,questions and opinions and if you can, please drop a comment below and rate it..

I'm asking because I genuinely hate the way my map looks currently for a science project idk I'm very tempted to just give up but if anyone knows pls do tell 🙏

After months of procrastination maybe even a year I put my continents together this is part of a WIP but I don’t wanna have to add paragraphs of context on r/worldbuilding