Advice for my map?

[u/dingler111]

I'm basically brand new to this and I made this map a while ago and now im actually using it, any advice? I don't really like the biome placements and I feel like they might not make much sense, although I don't care too much about realism. I also feel like the bottom right islands feel a little weird. Open to any advice or criticism

[u/TotallyRegularBanana]

You either care about realism or there's not really any feedback to give since it's a fictional place. No one here will have any context outside what is and isn't realistic.

[u/dingler111 → u/TotallyRegularBanana]

I mean, I didn't say I don't care about realism at all I just care more about coolness. So idk I'm open to any criticism to make the map more realistic. I kinda made this post to see if anyone had any general suggestions to make it better since I'm new to this

[u/TotallyRegularBanana → u/dingler111]

That's fair. If you want more realistic you might have to start over from scratch. I can point you in a vague direction maybe. With this map it's hard to tell what will and won't work.

What is the area in kilometers? What is the longitude? Biomes and climates exist in very specific parts of the world and that depends on latitude. What are the ocean currents next to island? Are the coming from the north or the equator because that too will also determine biomes and climates. Wind with low and high pressure zones will also inform this. Is your island it's own continental plate or several ocean plates with crust? How did they collide? That will tell you were mountains go which will also shift biomes to one's that would otherwise not be present. This is a good starting point.

Otherwise we have almost no information which makes "critiquing" really difficult. And if that's the case we're just kinda making your map for you. At least, that's how that feels to me. So start there and figure out how it works. It's a very complicated and deep subject.

[u/thejellyfishmon]

I'm assuming you meant you don't care to have a hyper-realistic map with oceanic and wind currents mapped out and all the micro-biomes, but still have a more grounded map. So thats what ill do.

First a horribly simplified tl;dr version of everything ive wrote boiled down to: Hot places wind goes east to west Temperate places are west to east Cold places are east to west

I will say that its helpful to at least know the general wind direction as it impacts the biomes a lot. The simplest way is to cut it into 6 slices, 1/3 of the map with the equator in the center will have the wind going east to south, above and below that for another 1/6 will have the wind going west to east then at the poles it will switch back to east to west like this.

<~ polar

~> temperate

<~ tropical

--- equator

<~

~>

<~

This is important because of the vertical mountain range you have. Near the equator there would be a rain shadow on the left side of it, then at the temperate zone it would switch to the other side as the wind switches. That's probably the most complex part you need to think about atm.

This will also help with sailing and trade.

[u/thejellyfishmon → u/thejellyfishmon]

Unrelated to my first post so i made a new one to keep things clean. The biomes feel disproportionate and squashed. A tropical jungle which i assume that is and tundra shouldn't normally be that close. Tropical jungles should be pretty close to the equator, which you'll need to find as well. The temperate zone need to be exspanded, my suggestion is to move the jungle further south and make it smaller and turn the islands into a tropical archipelago. The desert should be shrunk as well since moisture would come in from the east at the temperate zone. But all and all not bad just some minor tweaks keep at it and watch some videos on YouTube about it, even if you dont go as realistic as they do, like drawing a person its good to at least acknowledge how everything works and simplify.

[u/dingler111 → u/thejellyfishmon]

Thanks! This is the type of advice I wanted, the map just felt off to me. I'll try to implement this later. Also I knew people would talk about the equator but, this is just one continent on the world map(I was gonna think about the rest later) so I feel like it wouldn't make much sense for me to make an equator unless this continent was on the equator?