... the rivers... This is my attempt at making a Tolkienesque map for Felicia's Second Life. A better version of this one is planned for Book 1. Tell me what you think. My first attempt was this one: And this was what was made between the ones above:
I think rivers in the first map look slightly bizarre. Generally rivers will have many small rivers running into them and they will (almost) never branch back out again. Apart from that, it looks pretty nice Oh, also a river that is 80miles wide is called a sea The widest river in the world is the Amazon and in peak rainy season that reaches just shy of 48km wide (29.8miles)
I thought you were gonna say "I think I messed up... I think she's pregnant..." or "I think.... she's a man....." Guess I should stop watching 'The Jerry Springer Show' on YT for now, huh?
Why though? That was my first map, made in like 40 minutes. I thought it was pretty wonky. Yeah, I thought I went overboard with the rivers. Any idea how I should fix it? Fixing it is easy, I just don't know how to fix it to make it logical. As for the Mrun River, just consider it a personality quirk of the people in that world. It's because the Mrun River is freshwater, you may call it god's miracle. I think I'll take your advice and narrow it a little, though. Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't have the capacity to impregnate any girl. Any idea how I can fix it? Just FYI, though, River Country is only the triangle land in the middle upper of the map. The left are the kingdoms of Wamor and Forlend. To the right are the kingdoms of Surfes and Rotenheim.
The color that you use for river is too bright. Lower the hue and decrease the saturation. Try to find an old map, and color pick the river/sea
Hi Ai, I prefer your first attemps its a little bit more simple to read. I did not read you story but just looking a the first map, I think it should be good to: -exchange twin rivers and Selkur, name. -put a mountain on the left of Oddartoft. - reduce the number of fortress (transforming them in small or big village or even cities, but king tend to centralize all the power in one big city , example Weed and Morata. -put the fortress at strategic point and random village, if you know the game, mount and blade , It ressemble a bit. Overall I think its pretty good if its just a country. Just some polishing like you did for the last map. For the second map: its done pretty well god differents zone: plains, forest , island , mountain maybe a swamp would be cool and more villages if you can. Again only looked a the map maybe there is only big cities due to the plot in that case nevemind , but its good to put it sooner than later , it would put less work for you later, some might say it s a spoil it s your decision. Ps: your rivers doest not shock me because it s a novel if your world is very wide its okay , and I know river that are 10 to 48 km wide even 240 wide ( the largest i know). Fred
With OS maps, (1:50000), a double line river (a river over 8m wide) looks like it's at least 20m. The problem with yours is that due to the scale, all of your double line rivers look like they are at least 1 mile wide. If you even begin to consider the sheer amount of rain you would need to supply 50+ mile wide rivers across a 1000x1000mile(ish) piece of land, you will realise that it would need the equivalent of a monsoon for 365 days per year over the entire map. So pretty much I would recommend you lower the scale on your map and keep the rivers single line for a bit longer.
Hints and tips Rivers are like trees, with branches and a trunk. Rivers do not wiggle back and forth like a snake. They twist with the land, and have large, central turns that contain the smaller, precise twists. Rivers get larger when another "branch" joins in. Remember, the river now has that much extra water to carry. When rivers branch off, the ground near the partition tends to be waterlogged.What an opportune place for a swamp to grow! Rivers also vanish or end in lakes, these are called endorheic basins
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/...-oclc-6928028-great-britain-and-france-b1.jpg This is a 1:2million map. On this map, 1cm=12.4miles 1inch=31.56miles. So this map is slightly smaller than your map 1 and 3. This map covers the whole of the UK and most of France.
http://i.imgur.com/yAXf8xD.jpg I shoved some black circles around areas that look quite strange. 1) Generally a river will never get narrower as it heads towards the sea. 2) Rivers will never make a sharp right angle turn. 3) Rivers never terminate in the middle of nowhere (unless it's a tiny stream and tiny streams shouldn't be on a map of this scale) 4) Rivers start very very narrow. You can't have a double line river right from the source because the river just hasn't had enough time to accumulate water. 5) A river can't suddenly get double it's width. Has to happen gradually. Even when you have 2 equal size rivers meeting, the river will only get approx 30-50% wider. (because the river will also get deeper)
Darn, guess I'll have to redo the whole rivers again. I know they don't go sharp angles, but it's hard doing it with a mouse. I want a new graphic tablet I wonder if I can entice anyone into fixing the rivers for me in exchange for a free copy of the book. Thank you all for your opinions and advice. If you have any more advice, feel free to add.
origin of rivers is in valleys of mountains they generally start out small then merge to form giant rivers. also lakes could start the river.so narrow down the river by half then start branching towards mountains (make one of the stream towards mountains wider by twice its width.) that river looks more like a sea then a river. as for the mouth of the river you can make a basin or a marsh thats usually how rivers end. (slow down too much cant dig out a channel/sediment filled in causes mouth of river to turn into marsh land. thats one way it can improve
Also, think gravity and elevation. Water always tries to flow downhill. So, rivers running in parallel to mountain ranges is a little weird, especially if there's a flat plain on the other side that eventually will lead to the sea. (e.g. Bleifredalr to Griribekker) Similarly, rivers starting from plains and heading towards mountains makes no sense. (e.g. Halston-Renus curve)
Well, if there is a large plateu at very high elevation, a river starting there (would probably be ice fed) would have to go through the mountains to reach down (it would never flow up though), that would make for some very complicated routes.
I don't know a thing about rivers, or mountains or geography. But I do recommend taking a step back and think about what kind of map do you want? As in, how detailed of a map do you want? Think about the kind of maps you can buy in some rpg novel. The cheap kind, the slightly more expensive, or the one at the library that nobody goes to? Depending on what you want, those rivers that are causing you trouble can be shredded off. Not all of it but as much as you need to only show off enough to make your map what you want. Like the cheapest kind will only show the major rivers, forests, dungeons and stuff. They might not even show small villages out in nowhere. I just think that you don't need that many small branches of rivers.