@@tgmaps I am also artistically retarded but as Patrick once said "We're not cavemen! We have technology!", I make my maps using digital tools, they look decent, solved all my troubles.
Arda is also what Tolkien called prehistoric (or as he put it "middle") earth. PIE word for dirt is something like "urd" and most languages have words similar to that for soil, the world or both, earth and erte being no exceptions. Much of Tolkien's languages was comprised of PIE roots dressed up in different phonaesthetics and grammars to create the facsimile of older "real" languages that fit his aesthetic taste.
vitriolicAmaranth Arda was actually the name for the entire planet. Aman, (before it was taken up) Middle-Earth (Beleriand included), The Hither Lands, and after the removal of Aman came the Dark Lands, Hyarmenor, and the Land of The Sun are all land masses in Arda. Let’s not forget the oceans. Yes Middle Earth was one land mass before the War of the Valar. But Arda is the planet not Prehistoric Middle-Earth.
Regarding rivers and straits: In the first map, if those are straits, they're either very recently formed (some geological or magical cause might be interesting) or they're improperly weathered. Straits are subjected to tidal surge, which is a much more aggressive form of weathering than is caused by a river's relatively consistent flow. Of course, all weathering takes time, hence the possibility that it's a recently formed strait - Africa's rift valley could've wound up like that if it wasn't boxed in by land on both ends, and of course, if you've got a fantasy world there's always the possibility some wizard or god did something *impressive*. In the second map, you call out river bifurcation, saying it's extremely rare, which is true in the steeper terrains we're used to in, but that changes when you get into large extended flatlands like we seem to be looking at here. Consider rivers like the Nile, whose delta spreads in a vast triangular structure spanning pretty much a 90 degree area from northeast to northwest of Cairo, or the Ganges, which covers a similarly massive area in India. There are places where rivers split around larger chunks of more durable rock - most common in more tropical regions because the vast glaciers of the ice ages ground most such features into dust long before we ever started making maps. You're right that some of these are exceptional river deltas, particularly if this is a continent scale map, but river deltas are far from rare - most rivers form some sort of delta. I live on a relatively small island in a community bisected by a river, and if you look at the terrain, before the dike was built to constrain the river, it's pretty apparent that the whole bottom of the valley was originally a river delta.
In addition, may I elaborate. The point about using the word "bifurcate" is that it technically just means to fork or split in two, this is not expanded upon in terms of direction very well in the video. Rivers "bifurcate" all the time going upstream when one is draining/joining another and although it's still split in two, the terminology that should be used would be a confluence. If you're travelling downstream, it is much rarer, and as you say, more prone on flats, swamps and deltas, however as river levels rise and fall many of these bifurcations stop and the main channel is the only "river". Also, unless the river drains into the sea or a lake, the downstream bifurcations often rejoin the main channel (forming your island as an example), not as shown in many of these maps show, continue to the coast 100's of km away. (edited for terminology clarity) Cripes that is still poorly written, hey it was late, let's try again. If you know the direction then, Downstream split into two = Bifurcation, Downstream join of two flows = Confluence. The confusion in a geographic context will come from where the direction of flow is not clear.
@@groadoswaggins I forget - did I mention the matter of scale? We generally assume fantasy maps are large, continent sized maps, but for a small scale campaign a much more regionalized map is actually more relevant. I'm playing a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign where we've mostly been solving very small localized problems for the council of Saltmarsh - aside from the rough geopolitical situation of pirates in the south, kingdom heartland in the north, other maritime nations to the east, we don't really need to know where anything is. We do, however, need to know where the swamp a day's travel from Saltmarsh is so we can investigate the patrol that went missing down that way. On a map that spans 30-40 km, you're much more likely to see those small details of rivers splitting and merging, diverging to form deltas and ...well, saltmarshes - details that would probably be glossed over on a big continental scale map. ...Of course, it's entirely possible the map I was talking about did have a scale somewhere that I missed. If that really was depicting a waterway on the sort of scale of the Amazon river, but branching instead of merging, you'll probably want to have a good reason for that, because nature didn't do it.
@@rashkavar Yah! I don't recall seeing one scale-bar in those maps, which should be anathema to any good cartographer, geographer, or scientist in general
I love that every map is given compliments and their strengths are highlighted before going into what could change. A great job facilitating critiques.
Something I would love to see in more maps is the use of a scale. Yes we get a compass but how far north? How far east? This puts better reference on how big the map is.
Arda, by the way, is the in-world name for Tolkien's broader 'Middle Earth' setting. There is even a published book called "The Encyclopedia of Arda" which features a number of maps of Tolkien's world. I wonder if this is an accident, a coincidence, or an intentional cultivation on the part of these map-makers?
For the "busy: map of Archwizard at 4:48 and onward, i'm no expert but if you like that "busy" style, which i totally understand, a tip i can think of is using two different colours (at least two). for example, black and gray, or blue and gray. one to be harsh, saturated color, and the other to be subtle color, less saturated, maybe even a pencil. and then you separate the things you draw with them. for example details on the map are with the subtle color (gray), like the grasslands, most of the trees assuming they are regular forests. the hills and smaller mountains.... and so on. then you use the saturated color (black) to mark important landmarks, like the cities, like a big unpassable mountain range, or an unnatural/magical forest, that is way denser than a normal forest. i can see that something like this is made, using thinker and thinner lines of the pen, but since it's a very dark pen, even the details look distracting and busy
I think you need to reconsider the river splitting thing. It is rare for a river to split, but countless times a river has split and joined back together farther down the river.
Pretty much all of those are a river in bottomland where an island has formed from sediment and circumstances have let the channels drift apart. Such things are almost never visible on a continental-scale map. You get braided rivers with many splitting and rejoining channels in heavily sediment-laden conditions like glacier outflows, and sometimes multi-channel rivers in something as vast as the Amazon where floodwaters cover the entire plain, then recede into defined channels at low water.
Some really great tips on map creation in here! I hadn't given much thought to river bifurcation until you brought it up. I didn't understand the difference between a river splitting as it flows towards a larger body of water vs multiple rivers/streams flowing into one river that makes its way to the ocean, for example. Thanks for sharing these critiques! - Jill
"River bifurcation" is not at all uncommon in nature, not only do many rivers have some delta areas, but also almost all rivers have islands, formed through this very common process.
It's more that it rarely happens on a large scale. The really freaky shit happens around karsts and fjords though (or just India in general- with stretches of river that run straight for hundreds of miles, run parallel to mountains, coasts or other branches of river, bifurcate and flow around islands, bifurcate with one side flowing into salt lakes, and finally split into the world's largest river delta, the Mouth of the Ganges).
Just wanted to say that I really love your style of giving critique. You always seem to find something that you truly love about each map, and you're polite and constructive about everything that could be done better. It's the kind of critique that would inspire me to put even more effort into my work.
@@WASD20 Yeah, it reminds me of how my teachers always taught me to give critique. "Say something positive first, and then something negative." I just always force myself to find something positive to point out and then sound disingenuous.
Wow! I didn't realise my map was featured haha! (the bright colored green/blue one was mine) Thanks for the tips on the rivers, will definately take more notice of that in the future! Greetings from the Netherlands :)
Thank you for critiquing my map, Nate! (4th one!) That was super cool to see. :D I am still working on this land for my DnD Campaign, which is on (this) TH-cam account, it is not much, but it is mine.
A tributary is not a river splitting. It is a small river JOINING with a larger river. And yes, there are TONS of them. What you might be thinking of is a distributary, which is FAR more rare, but yes there are some. The Atchafalaya River is a well known distributary of the Mississippi River, for example.
I don’t get it. Rivers split all the time. We have like 4 main rivers in Germany but hundreds of splits. And even main separations and mix ups of the main rivers.
@@squattingheads they usually split in flatter land, I didn't understand why he said it either, but then I realised I am biased because I'm dutch and we basically live in one big river delta.
I had a beautiful world. Just ended drawing a sketch of it: coastlines of continents, main rivers and places where main mountain ranges should have been. I started to fill it in with colors and details, and at that moment my mom got into the room and asked me why Africa has smashed Europe out from Eurasia, and why my Australia has a giant bay in the middle... And I can not force myself to finish my work, because every time I try, I see Australia with giant bay, Africa smashed with Asia and Europa turned in some undesirable blob in the far north. And like you probably figured out it was not my intention. :(
I did come up with some. Great old one world maps as I love the fantasy worlds but also made some alien worlds and also one where you are inside a great old one creature. Love to share it when I finish it.
Honestly, the map I loved most out of these was the one with the huge burned hole in the side I believe the fourth by Patachuka?. It might not be the "best2 map but I love it. it just looks like a map you hold in your hand maybe you even got it from your great-great-grandfather or something? Yeah, it lacks some detail but it just looks old and almost physical. It's just beautiful. And "the shadow of arm" I did not run into a fellow Baldurs gate player, did I?^^ But man I look at these maps and that map I am making, right now and yeah slightly demoralizing^^ It's my first and I am no artist at all. Like my drawing skills are negative 500so I'm just glad that you have a tutorial for Inkarnate. But it makes my map look horrible. I mean it is a mess I doubt it makes any sense to anyone but me and I just lack realistic places for my towns because I did not draw enough water I think.(Or maybe I am just too strict about placing settlements next to water) But well one good thing came from the map I made. It's for the novel I'm writing and while I was making up geographical reasons why two places have the importance they have (one cross country road, the king's road, and a harbor city.) I created a region I just want to explore myself because it just looks gorgeous on the map. (well the place probably doesn't look gorgeous as the part of the map, but you could imagine that area as extremely beautiful. I love rural village type areas with a lot of greenery and that place although or rather because it's near an active volcano is all green.)
i like the maps with no settlements. it seems to indicate there is no Center, but that all the bailifs or villages, are perhaps even nomadic, or are cabins aside from actual residences
Would Love to be with the other members of the comunity on the mappening,but considerng the time comparison, it will be 3AM at me here while in the EDT will be 9PM Apart from that,I've been following the discord channel and was truly impressed by the amount of skil some members have!
the Arda map I could see as cloud islands. tall plateaus and mesas that soar above the surrounding landscape. so we could be talking insane cliffs that are thousands of feet high.
You should google a river map of europe, some of them defy all rules but gravity. Rivers tend to join in highlands, but in flatlands they split, especially when nearing the coast. The Garonne is actually coast to coast thanks to canals. On some maps it leads to the pyrenees and sometimes it leads to the mediterranean sea. The netherlands are basically one big delta. I guess it also depends on human interference, because the canal that makes the garonne coast to coast is probably build so that merchandise could be moved through francr instead of around spain and portugal, which is safer, cheaper and faster.
Sometime I'm gonna build a map that is just full of salt rivers flowing from the ocean to super hot basins and evaporating. Imagine the Mediterranean but it's almost sealed off and a kilometer below sealevel.
Arda is from LOTR in some capacity I believe. Seems to be a pretty common name, not that I've got anywhere in my setting named arda, but i swear to god it always pops into my head for some reason when I am crafting names
@@kingofsauce1319 iirc Arda is the name of the larger world Middle Earth is on. "Arda" as a name itself also is also clearly derived from the name for Earth in Germanic languages, eg. English "Earth", Dutch "Aarde", German "Erde".
water flows from higher to lower. Which is why I think coast-to-coast doesn't make much sense, since water level is the same on both sides. Unless its not in your world? You can break rules of course, its just good to do it intentionally I heard
so glad this channel popped up on my recommend. I've been getting into DnD and Warhammer 40k so maybe that's why your channel popped up but even before that I've always been a fan of maps ever since I got the first Jax and Daxter video game and the manual was also a map. I still have that thing hung up but anyways I dig your channel and you got yourself a new subscriber.
Something that I find interesting, is that I have seen some real life ancient maps, some are very silly looking and not at all accurate or even useful as a guide. I've seen maps that were accepted, presumably, as the best works of their time that would lead you no where. I often wonder why D&D map makers feel such a responsibility to create maps that are soooo accurate. Especially when there's so much opportunity for adventure in getting lost. Happy adventures!
Certainly an interesting point. Might be useful to create two maps - one that's accurate, for the DM's use, and one that's inaccurate for the players to use.
I'm thinking about making a project where a Cop gets transported to a fantasy world, and the fantasy world will be kinda alright, besides the world will be called Adaraon (Ah-Dar-un) A beautiful world where dread looms in its vicinity via a Dark Knight who goes by the name, Feldarii
Nice. Would you make a hilly area the same way as mountains but with rounded tops? I think mountains generally dont fill an area like hills do so I could use hills to fill in some spaces.
They aren't necessarily copying, they can be roleplay gamers who created a map for their game with friends or community of rpg, so they decided to call it Arda as a tribute to Tolkien. Till the purpose of the map is not for commercial purposes there is in my opinion no problem ^^
@@WASD20 The confusion here stems from the use of the word bifurcation. Technically, the word by itself just means to divide in two. There is no directionality to it. It only specifically has a meaning with regard to rivers when the direction of flow is considered.
Bifurcation DOES imply direction. Two streams joining together can not be bifurcation. If the word means dividing in two, then joining from two to one is not bifurcation. You may look at two streams joining together on a map and from a geometric perspective we say, "that line is dividing into two there", but we're talking about geography here and the waters from two different streams are not "dividing in two" at that point.
@@WASD20 Yes, upon re-reading that I could have explained it much better (I did in a different post). I guess I was thinking of the classic dictionary definition when I said "by itself", I should have said, "Technically the word could just mean to divide in two WHEN there is no directionality to it". You are correct, however, the direction MUST be apparent, whether it be time, flow, or (when I first heard the word so many years ago) the progress of a chaotic/fractal period-halving. Once you KNOW the direction (i.e. "...with regard to rivers when the direction of flow is considered") you can easily decide whether it is a bifurcation or a confluence. In a mapping context, the classic "mountains to the sea" thing should imply the context, but this is not always apparent in some of the maps where you indicated problems or confusion. I hope this time I made more sense, and please consider all caps to be italics. :)
6:02 Honestly I think the creator is a bit confused there. He draws the water with diagonal lines and as you can see from the texture and rock formations of the area on the left that that what was given the outline of a central lake with river inflow ended up as a desert itself.
Hello, I'm the one who drew the dwarven map, thank you for your advice! I have more if you like :P
I like! Tip: For those dwarf images over the sea: Use the blend mode "Darken" to avoid the white aliasing around the lines.
So, where are the settlements? :)
underground maybe?@@crashoveryu
Yay I got in! My is the Temerian map.
Nice map!
Nice job!!!
Vernon Roche approves.
Foltest aproves
Naglis Grasmanas really really impressive, iam bluffed that you recreated all Temeria !
I always liked creating maps but your channel has made me understand how to actually make them look good
Same but i'm just artistically retarded and no amount of advice make mine look more than okay.
@@tgmaps I am also artistically retarded but as Patrick once said "We're not cavemen! We have technology!", I make my maps using digital tools, they look decent, solved all my troubles.
You got tips?
12:01 Me: Arda? Haha, kind of sounds like the german word for Earth (Erde), what a coincidence! *sees that the city names are german* Wait a second...
Arda is also what Tolkien called prehistoric (or as he put it "middle") earth. PIE word for dirt is something like "urd" and most languages have words similar to that for soil, the world or both, earth and erte being no exceptions. Much of Tolkien's languages was comprised of PIE roots dressed up in different phonaesthetics and grammars to create the facsimile of older "real" languages that fit his aesthetic taste.
It is the lesser know word for middle earth that tolkien sometimes used.
so I find it a Bad hint to middle earth and not creative
vitriolicAmaranth Arda was actually the name for the entire planet. Aman, (before it was taken up) Middle-Earth (Beleriand included), The Hither Lands, and after the removal of Aman came the Dark Lands, Hyarmenor, and the Land of The Sun are all land masses in Arda. Let’s not forget the oceans.
Yes Middle Earth was one land mass before the War of the Valar. But Arda is the planet not Prehistoric Middle-Earth.
Arda is the universe that Lordnof the rings and middle earth is in.
Arda is the world of LOTR lol, when I saw that i was immediately like...
Regarding rivers and straits:
In the first map, if those are straits, they're either very recently formed (some geological or magical cause might be interesting) or they're improperly weathered. Straits are subjected to tidal surge, which is a much more aggressive form of weathering than is caused by a river's relatively consistent flow. Of course, all weathering takes time, hence the possibility that it's a recently formed strait - Africa's rift valley could've wound up like that if it wasn't boxed in by land on both ends, and of course, if you've got a fantasy world there's always the possibility some wizard or god did something *impressive*.
In the second map, you call out river bifurcation, saying it's extremely rare, which is true in the steeper terrains we're used to in, but that changes when you get into large extended flatlands like we seem to be looking at here. Consider rivers like the Nile, whose delta spreads in a vast triangular structure spanning pretty much a 90 degree area from northeast to northwest of Cairo, or the Ganges, which covers a similarly massive area in India. There are places where rivers split around larger chunks of more durable rock - most common in more tropical regions because the vast glaciers of the ice ages ground most such features into dust long before we ever started making maps. You're right that some of these are exceptional river deltas, particularly if this is a continent scale map, but river deltas are far from rare - most rivers form some sort of delta. I live on a relatively small island in a community bisected by a river, and if you look at the terrain, before the dike was built to constrain the river, it's pretty apparent that the whole bottom of the valley was originally a river delta.
In addition, may I elaborate. The point about using the word "bifurcate" is that it technically just means to fork or split in two, this is not expanded upon in terms of direction very well in the video. Rivers "bifurcate" all the time going upstream when one is draining/joining another and although it's still split in two, the terminology that should be used would be a confluence. If you're travelling downstream, it is much rarer, and as you say, more prone on flats, swamps and deltas, however as river levels rise and fall many of these bifurcations stop and the main channel is the only "river". Also, unless the river drains into the sea or a lake, the downstream bifurcations often rejoin the main channel (forming your island as an example), not as shown in many of these maps show, continue to the coast 100's of km away. (edited for terminology clarity) Cripes that is still poorly written, hey it was late, let's try again. If you know the direction then, Downstream split into two = Bifurcation, Downstream join of two flows = Confluence. The confusion in a geographic context will come from where the direction of flow is not clear.
@@groadoswaggins I forget - did I mention the matter of scale? We generally assume fantasy maps are large, continent sized maps, but for a small scale campaign a much more regionalized map is actually more relevant.
I'm playing a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign where we've mostly been solving very small localized problems for the council of Saltmarsh - aside from the rough geopolitical situation of pirates in the south, kingdom heartland in the north, other maritime nations to the east, we don't really need to know where anything is. We do, however, need to know where the swamp a day's travel from Saltmarsh is so we can investigate the patrol that went missing down that way.
On a map that spans 30-40 km, you're much more likely to see those small details of rivers splitting and merging, diverging to form deltas and ...well, saltmarshes - details that would probably be glossed over on a big continental scale map.
...Of course, it's entirely possible the map I was talking about did have a scale somewhere that I missed. If that really was depicting a waterway on the sort of scale of the Amazon river, but branching instead of merging, you'll probably want to have a good reason for that, because nature didn't do it.
@@rashkavar Yah! I don't recall seeing one scale-bar in those maps, which should be anathema to any good cartographer, geographer, or scientist in general
1 minute of silence for everyone who read the whole comment
This is just a joke, no offence intended
I read the entire thing and the top reply! Lol
I love that every map is given compliments and their strengths are highlighted before going into what could change. A great job facilitating critiques.
Something I would love to see in more maps is the use of a scale. Yes we get a compass but how far north? How far east? This puts better reference on how big the map is.
Thank you for the shout out Nate. That was a nice surprise!
Really great to be a part of this community. Great maps guys... I love them all ❤
10:50 I think the roads were made with wax before painting, so it repels the paint and stays white.
No, I did it without
Dave Donut made a map called "Arda" and then the next map was by Arda, nice!
Arda, by the way, is the in-world name for Tolkien's broader 'Middle Earth' setting. There is even a published book called "The Encyclopedia of Arda" which features a number of maps of Tolkien's world. I wonder if this is an accident, a coincidence, or an intentional cultivation on the part of these map-makers?
@@JoeKawano Isn't that an online encyclopedia?
Kattegat is a real place, a strait between Denmark and Sweden
Where was Kattegat mentioned?
@@DaDunge Vikings, Netflix series
6:50 you can see he jsut heard of the letter ø and thought nothing has an ø in it so he just placed it everywhere
For the "busy: map of Archwizard at 4:48 and onward, i'm no expert but if you like that "busy" style, which i totally understand, a tip i can think of is using two different colours (at least two). for example, black and gray, or blue and gray. one to be harsh, saturated color, and the other to be subtle color, less saturated, maybe even a pencil. and then you separate the things you draw with them. for example details on the map are with the subtle color (gray), like the grasslands, most of the trees assuming they are regular forests. the hills and smaller mountains.... and so on. then you use the saturated color (black) to mark important landmarks, like the cities, like a big unpassable mountain range, or an unnatural/magical forest, that is way denser than a normal forest.
i can see that something like this is made, using thinker and thinner lines of the pen, but since it's a very dark pen, even the details look distracting and busy
My map got featured :D The 3rd one Vetrheimer.
I think you need to reconsider the river splitting thing. It is rare for a river to split, but countless times a river has split and joined back together farther down the river.
Pretty much all of those are a river in bottomland where an island has formed from sediment and circumstances have let the channels drift apart. Such things are almost never visible on a continental-scale map. You get braided rivers with many splitting and rejoining channels in heavily sediment-laden conditions like glacier outflows, and sometimes multi-channel rivers in something as vast as the Amazon where floodwaters cover the entire plain, then recede into defined channels at low water.
I like making multiple of the same map for separate political/settlement map and biome map
is it weird that i felt a higher information density from this episode than some of your tutorials ? 10/10 would love to see this more often
Some really great tips on map creation in here! I hadn't given much thought to river bifurcation until you brought it up. I didn't understand the difference between a river splitting as it flows towards a larger body of water vs multiple rivers/streams flowing into one river that makes its way to the ocean, for example. Thanks for sharing these critiques! - Jill
Recently got back into it, I have to admit these gave me some ideas
I'll make sure to show it in the channel once I'm done with it
"River bifurcation" is not at all uncommon in nature, not only do many rivers have some delta areas, but also almost all rivers have islands, formed through this very common process.
It's more that it rarely happens on a large scale. The really freaky shit happens around karsts and fjords though (or just India in general- with stretches of river that run straight for hundreds of miles, run parallel to mountains, coasts or other branches of river, bifurcate and flow around islands, bifurcate with one side flowing into salt lakes, and finally split into the world's largest river delta, the Mouth of the Ganges).
Nate how about you redraw their maps next time you do this, it could be a fun idea?
He could use aquarelle for my map as he wanted to :D
Maybe for the more advanced ones he could do in a really different style
Just wanted to say that I really love your style of giving critique. You always seem to find something that you truly love about each map, and you're polite and constructive about everything that could be done better. It's the kind of critique that would inspire me to put even more effort into my work.
Lol. Probably comes from being a teacher.
@@WASD20 Yeah, it reminds me of how my teachers always taught me to give critique. "Say something positive first, and then something negative." I just always force myself to find something positive to point out and then sound disingenuous.
Wow! I didn't realise my map was featured haha! (the bright colored green/blue one was mine) Thanks for the tips on the rivers, will definately take more notice of that in the future! Greetings from the Netherlands :)
Thank you for critiquing my map, Nate! (4th one!) That was super cool to see. :D I am still working on this land for my DnD Campaign, which is on (this) TH-cam account, it is not much, but it is mine.
Cool! Keep up the great work. :)
3:40 I'd say that Eoma region is just one enormous river delta.
What do you mean its rare in nature for rivers to split? There are thousands of tributaries coming off of the Mississippi River alone
A tributary is not a river splitting. It is a small river JOINING with a larger river. And yes, there are TONS of them.
What you might be thinking of is a distributary, which is FAR more rare, but yes there are some. The Atchafalaya River is a well known distributary of the Mississippi River, for example.
@WASD20 Ah tha k you for the correction, trubutary, distrubutary. Lots of tary's. Maybe that's what they were trying to convey in their maps?
when rivers bifurcate, you're definitely looking at a flood delta area. AKA the Nile and the Mississippi.
I don’t get it. Rivers split all the time. We have like 4 main rivers in Germany but hundreds of splits. And even main separations and mix ups of the main rivers.
@@squattingheads they usually split in flatter land, I didn't understand why he said it either, but then I realised I am biased because I'm dutch and we basically live in one big river delta.
Love this channel. Helped me so much with mapmaking.
Love this channel, Keep up the Good work Nate! ❤️
I like how your not afraid to criticise your subscribers it allows people to improve
I had a beautiful world. Just ended drawing a sketch of it: coastlines of continents, main rivers and places where main mountain ranges should have been. I started to fill it in with colors and details, and at that moment my mom got into the room and asked me why Africa has smashed Europe out from Eurasia, and why my Australia has a giant bay in the middle... And I can not force myself to finish my work, because every time I try, I see Australia with giant bay, Africa smashed with Asia and Europa turned in some undesirable blob in the far north. And like you probably figured out it was not my intention. :(
Ah don't be too down, I just recently started creating my world and it's lots of trial and error just keep going at and have fun :)
Try turning your map upside down! it can do the trick
I did come up with some. Great old one world maps as I love the fantasy worlds but also made some alien worlds and also one where you are inside a great old one creature. Love to share it when I finish it.
Honestly, the map I loved most out of these was the one with the huge burned hole in the side I believe the fourth by Patachuka?. It might not be the "best2 map but I love it. it just looks like a map you hold in your hand maybe you even got it from your great-great-grandfather or something? Yeah, it lacks some detail but it just looks old and almost physical. It's just beautiful.
And "the shadow of arm" I did not run into a fellow Baldurs gate player, did I?^^
But man I look at these maps and that map I am making, right now and yeah slightly demoralizing^^
It's my first and I am no artist at all. Like my drawing skills are negative 500so I'm just glad that you have a tutorial for Inkarnate. But it makes my map look horrible. I mean it is a mess I doubt it makes any sense to anyone but me and I just lack realistic places for my towns because I did not draw enough water I think.(Or maybe I am just too strict about placing settlements next to water) But well one good thing came from the map I made. It's for the novel I'm writing and while I was making up geographical reasons why two places have the importance they have (one cross country road, the king's road, and a harbor city.) I created a region I just want to explore myself because it just looks gorgeous on the map. (well the place probably doesn't look gorgeous as the part of the map, but you could imagine that area as extremely beautiful. I love rural village type areas with a lot of greenery and that place although or rather because it's near an active volcano is all green.)
10:35 what a great Witcher map
Thank you!
i like the maps with no settlements. it seems to indicate there is no Center, but that all the bailifs or villages, are perhaps even nomadic, or are cabins aside from actual residences
Would Love to be with the other members of the comunity on the mappening,but considerng the time comparison, it will be 3AM at me here while in the EDT will be 9PM
Apart from that,I've been following the discord channel and was truly impressed by the amount of skil some members have!
Well, I guess I will have to do a daytime Mappening next time!
the Arda map I could see as cloud islands. tall plateaus and mesas that soar above the surrounding landscape. so we could be talking insane cliffs that are thousands of feet high.
they are meant to be floating islands :D
With the Iermerjjos map, wax is a pretty good way to get good borders with watercolor. It isn't 100% reliable in my experience but it works.
11:31 oh shit that's Temeria from the Witcher!
You should google a river map of europe, some of them defy all rules but gravity. Rivers tend to join in highlands, but in flatlands they split, especially when nearing the coast. The Garonne is actually coast to coast thanks to canals. On some maps it leads to the pyrenees and sometimes it leads to the mediterranean sea. The netherlands are basically one big delta. I guess it also depends on human interference, because the canal that makes the garonne coast to coast is probably build so that merchandise could be moved through francr instead of around spain and portugal, which is safer, cheaper and faster.
Sometime I'm gonna build a map that is just full of salt rivers flowing from the ocean to super hot basins and evaporating. Imagine the Mediterranean but it's almost sealed off and a kilometer below sealevel.
is there a prize for the greatest number of times the word 'Of' can appear on a map?
Seeing a map being named "Arda",
me, having the name "Arda" : *sweating profusely*
Arda is from LOTR in some capacity I believe. Seems to be a pretty common name, not that I've got anywhere in my setting named arda, but i swear to god it always pops into my head for some reason when I am crafting names
@@kingofsauce1319 iirc Arda is the name of the larger world Middle Earth is on. "Arda" as a name itself also is also clearly derived from the name for Earth in Germanic languages, eg. English "Earth", Dutch "Aarde", German "Erde".
You have been chosen for a great quest !!
water flows from higher to lower. Which is why I think coast-to-coast doesn't make much sense, since water level is the same on both sides. Unless its not in your world? You can break rules of course, its just good to do it intentionally I heard
2:57 i see a Vikings reference! Kattegat...
I mean Kattegat is a real place in Scandinavia
@@Sinulf And in reality it is as flat as a pancake.
@@TheWampam yeah, its just water aint it?
@@Sinulf Kattegatt is the sea between Sweden, Norway and Denmark
10:57 that's just a map of the witcher lol.
Hey Mate, are you still interested in maps being sent in? I've got a handful.
On that watercolour map with the roads, they would have been done using a masking fluid before putting down the paint and then removed afterwards.
Negative, no masking fluid, i only didnt colour it
so glad this channel popped up on my recommend. I've been getting into DnD and Warhammer 40k so maybe that's why your channel popped up but even before that I've always been a fan of maps ever since I got the first Jax and Daxter video game and the manual was also a map. I still have that thing hung up but anyways I dig your channel and you got yourself a new subscriber.
I was just thinking about making a map!
11:00 (i actually somehow noticed that the text was in lithuanian. I come from Lithuania and it's really nice seeing people using the language)
Because I'm lithuanian myself and wanted to make a lithuanian map of witcher universe, hence used it :D
“...here in March 2020.” Me in August: “I miss March.”
I now love drawing maps because of you....you bastard. 😀
Something that I find interesting, is that I have seen some real life ancient maps, some are very silly looking and not at all accurate or even useful as a guide. I've seen maps that were accepted, presumably, as the best works of their time that would lead you no where.
I often wonder why D&D map makers feel such a responsibility to create maps that are soooo accurate. Especially when there's so much opportunity for adventure in getting lost.
Happy adventures!
Certainly an interesting point. Might be useful to create two maps - one that's accurate, for the DM's use, and one that's inaccurate for the players to use.
Fun feature. I hope to see it again.
that Temerija map is my favorite, they are all awesome, but that one looks like a legit medieval map!
Thanks
i think the splitting rivers vere deltas (idk how they’re called) but it isn’t *that* rare in nature.
As someone with both epilepsy and trypophobia (fear of small holes), that map at 14:20 should have a trypophobic warning, not epilepsy.
1:04 Yes, Please Do, Otherwise I Will Not Be Able To Review It... -And Probably Other People Won't Either But Do They -_-Really-_- Matter?-
Shadow of Armh would make a HILARIOUS name if it made it into a book! I can't stop laughing about that!
So all in all, the more effort the better it looks.
You should make this into a longer run series.
At 11:03 I noticed the forest was called Brokilonis. Almost like broccoli....
so the map at 3:43 the river thing with eoma makes me think of a river delta
11:12 they most likely used a wax white crayon to prevent water from spilling onto the trails
Nah, I didnt, just, too poor to buy things like that :D, I just went around it, plus for me its easier
@@vytizen thanks for the reply, you know you can get a white crayon for like 5 cents
13:46 clearly a forest of giant popcorn
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount video? Also love your work keep it up:)
Planning on it at some point in the next couple weeks.
yea well river splitting are real like deltas in Cairo Egypt and the Danube and rhine river in Europe do split at points.
i always thought it was pronounced "was D20" like past tense of "to be" you learn something new every day
That way is fine too. :)
I should submit some of my maps. Watching this channel has made me, I think, somewhat better at maps. Everyone else has cool maps.
You can paint the Mountains in WonderDraft to make them blend better.
Love the video idea.
One of those maps looked like Iceland
I'm thinking about making a project where a Cop gets transported to a fantasy world, and the fantasy world will be kinda alright, besides the world will be called Adaraon
(Ah-Dar-un) A beautiful world where dread looms in its vicinity via a Dark Knight who goes by the name, Feldarii
Not enough isekai featuring cops or firemen honestly
Nice. Would you make a hilly area the same way as mountains but with rounded tops? I think mountains generally dont fill an area like hills do so I could use hills to fill in some spaces.
I do hills with lighter strokes and rounded tops try that
7:37 by far my favorite map
These all make me want to make Civilisation maps of them
Arda made me think of Erda in a fantasy book called Bone War by Steven Harper. Its a good book. Got it from Dollar General.
joshua lichkay Arda is also the name of the world where Lotr is set
@@dr.spaghetti1973 Yeah thats the reason i picked the name, i love Tolkins work
me: yOu CaN'T jUsT nAmE yOuR wOrLd ArDa
everyone and their mother: haha arda go brrrrrr
Ok **names it albion instead** heheh
World: is called Arda
Me: SOUND THE ALARM LOTR FANS TO ARMS SOMEONE DO SOMETHING
12:00
Two worlds called Arda in a row? Do they know they are copying Tolkien or is it just a coincidence?
I know its the name of Tolkins world, its sort of a reference to his amazing work there :D
@@hamzaakcay6455 what does it mean? And how do you know that these are inspired by turkish.
@@hamzaakcay6455 possible but highly unlikely.
They aren't necessarily copying, they can be roleplay gamers who created a map for their game with friends or community of rpg, so they decided to call it Arda as a tribute to Tolkien.
Till the purpose of the map is not for commercial purposes there is in my opinion no problem ^^
Also possible to come to Arda by the same way tolkien did. It's just arguably the most attractive way to pronounce the PIE root earth came from.
LOVE THIS VIDEO! Is there any chance you'll do another one? Can I send my map for a review?
Absolutely. I eventually will do another one, but it will probably be several months.
@@WASD20 thank you! Should I send you an email or upload it in you discord server?
@@americanboypure Just follow the instructions in the first minute of the video. Many will be submitted. Few will be chosen. :)
@@WASD20 alright thanks!
Im just now making a map of my fictional dnd world of Vatudore. Been binging your channel for ideas and stuff.
On the second map, oxbows? Maybe not to scale but,...common indeed.
The mappening series is awesome
Did you notice the mushroom forest, in the map you were showing at 6:10 ?
I think is good to make more videos like this witht he community maps
I don’t want to critique any maps, but just wanted to learn someone about rivers like poster said.
Biforcating rivers or streams and rivers feeding the larger river? Feeders are very common.
That’s not what I’m talking about. Look up River Bifurcation. It is quite rare.
@@WASD20 The confusion here stems from the use of the word bifurcation. Technically, the word by itself just means to divide in two. There is no directionality to it. It only specifically has a meaning with regard to rivers when the direction of flow is considered.
Bifurcation DOES imply direction. Two streams joining together can not be bifurcation. If the word means dividing in two, then joining from two to one is not bifurcation. You may look at two streams joining together on a map and from a geometric perspective we say, "that line is dividing into two there", but we're talking about geography here and the waters from two different streams are not "dividing in two" at that point.
@@WASD20 Yes, upon re-reading that I could have explained it much better (I did in a different post). I guess I was thinking of the classic dictionary definition when I said "by itself", I should have said, "Technically the word could just mean to divide in two WHEN there is no directionality to it". You are correct, however, the direction MUST be apparent, whether it be time, flow, or (when I first heard the word so many years ago) the progress of a chaotic/fractal period-halving. Once you KNOW the direction (i.e. "...with regard to rivers when the direction of flow is considered") you can easily decide whether it is a bifurcation or a confluence. In a mapping context, the classic "mountains to the sea" thing should imply the context, but this is not always apparent in some of the maps where you indicated problems or confusion. I hope this time I made more sense, and please consider all caps to be italics. :)
@@groadoswaggins -- Yeah that all makes sense. :) Thanks for the explanation.
you can use white wax to mark the roads then pain in watercolor and it wont bleed over, i cant fully tell if thats what he did though
I didnt, I just drew pencil lines where not to draw
2nd map, there are quite a lot of river deltas in the world.
Idk why but I've always really liked a good map
arda is the name jrr tolkien used for his overall world
Cool stuff everyone
You did repeat the "Japanese looking" map :)
Oh no! Thanks for pointing this out
@@WASD20 Thank you for your videos!
literitally 0:00
WASD20: earth isnt the greatest place to be right now here in march 2020
me: how about earth in may 2021
6:02 Honestly I think the creator is a bit confused there. He draws the water with diagonal lines and as you can see from the texture and rock formations of the area on the left that that what was given the outline of a central lake with river inflow ended up as a desert itself.
This channel was a nice find. But boy, does Nate have a thing for Mountains! :)
😍
Nate i want to do my own map but every time i start i get lost on where to go
Some awesome maps here!
Very cool video, thx Nate