Plate tectonics are my favorite part of map making, they literally form the world for me. After you get mountains, you have deserts and forests. From there you get settlements and trade routes.
This is gonna be such a good series! I have a few recommendations from my own map-making experience. When you're zoomed out and viewing the whole continent, the coastline can seem a bit fuzzy. This is a result of making the coastline too squiggly and overly detailed - which can be a problem when you want more detail! What I've found is, that the extra detail isn't necessary for world maps, because it's, well... meant to be a world map. The coastline details really only become relevant, when you're looking into region maps, in which case it's meant to be zoomed in, which prevents the fuzzy coastline. If you search hand drawn fantasy maps, you'll also see, that world maps usually don't have overly detailed coastlines. Now, this whole thing is of course subjective, and it's up to the artist to determine the level of detail, but if you're also gonna be making more detailed region maps - and not just taking parts of this world map, and making them the region map - I would recommend not making the coastline as detailed and squiggly as it is in this iteration of the world map Anyway, have a great one!
I’ve been in the middle of making a homebrewed continent for the next campaign, and I’ve been watching and rewatching your other map video. Both great videos, and great resources. Keep it up man!
Just a heads up, the Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of "hot spot islands", essentially, there is a weak spot in the asthenosphere (below the lower boundary of plates), and this "hot spot" allows magma to intrude up into the plate, which creates a mountain chain as the plate slides over the hot spot. In terms of convergent plate boundaries, those can create different-shaped mountain chains depending on whether the collision is between oceanic plates, continental plates, or a combination. The denser plate (oceanic) will slide under the lighter plate (continental) and the subducted plate's lighter elements create magma under the lifted plate, creating progressively lighter rock as the Earth ages. As for your map, your initial mountain chain is clearly the site of a continental-vs-continental plate convergence. The same concept as above applies and one plate will be subducted under the other, but due to the less dense rock involved, you should expect a "thicker" and taller mountain range (potentially featuring a large plateau or highlands similar to the Himalayas) than those along subduction zones in the coastline or in the ocean.
I love mountains when it comes to mapmaking. Fun fact: one thing that almost every ancient civilization had in common, was that any of them that led up to the Caucasus Mountains immediately ended there. Only a select few civilizations (mainly the Mongols) were able to draw their borders on both sides of the mountain.
You acknowledged it in the video, but the ideal method for me is to draw a rough outline one continental coasts just freely and without any thought towards science and stuff. Just sketch out from the heart and see what shape it takes, both literally and figuratively. Then it's time to sit down with Tectonics Expert, Dr. Tobias (6:48) and get sciency! I'll look at the continental shapes that I've drawn, and then find ways to draw tectonic plates that could have built that world, ideally with multiple events and methods we see in our world. One of my favourites that I think gets overlooked is to consider the AGE of continental collisions, and how two continents colliding can result in plate fusion, while the mountains slowly erode away over time. So, some of the mountain ranges you'll find in the world - especially towards the interior of a continent - might be more like glorified hills. Anyway, once I've built out plates that work for what I've drawn, then I'll start putting detail into the coastlines that are derived from the tectonics. That's the flip, where it goes from the art guiding the science to the science guiding the art. Later additions like rivers, glaciation, etc. continue to shape the land for honestly as long as I'd like. It could be an infinite project, if I wanted it to be.
6:48 for Tobias the bestest of boys! And your previous videos about map making helped me a lot with making a hand drawn map for my Champaign that I am DMing right now and my players loved it! So thank you for the help and keep making the videos that you love and enjoy!
this is awesome! Its so fun to learn about real world stuff and use it in worldbuilding. These videos are making me research topics I never would've thought to explore otherwise
This is super helpful, me and the DM have been working together on the worldbuilding of our campaign for a while and we've been having difficulty with map creation.
good job you've earned yourself a subscriber. I started playing yesterday, so I'm really new to being a dm and the game itself, and so are my friends. I've been watching your videos for the past hour, and they are SO helpful
6:18 what you showed in the vieo is a hot spot this is very different then two plates divirging from each other. a hot spot is a place where hot magma goes up this then melts the ground causing vulkanoes that then lead to islands. sometimes an example is hawaii. diffrent from that is when two plates move away from each otehr. this makes a whole crak in the earth from wich hot magma comes. this then becomes part of the seaflore. then as the platses keep moving away from each other more seafloor forms.
Love this!🎉 Krita is a fantastic tool. I've been using it for a year now and it has changed how I do things alot. From world building to homebrew magic items.
1:31 I would say Inkarnate is mostly for world maps, thats what it started as/what it could do for the longest time. Until inkarnate 2.0 I've thought battle maps were a huge hassle to make (having to duplicate each section of wall instead of being able to draw them out being the biggest time consumer to me). I just think Inkarnate isn't really about super minute detail (though you can do fjords and such as you show, there's some excellent tutorials by Matti, one of the devs/team members of Inkarnate on using it, though I wish they organized/made shorter ones sometimes/treat each as a stand alone explaining it more). I think Inkarnate's strength is being fast, easy to use, and pretty easy for someone as novice as me to use it and get a decent map out of things. Of course using it as a rough base and then an actual art/editing software (such as krita) is probably gona be the best results/looks you can get using some digital tools (which think you did an awesome job on it, I'm pretty bad when drawing free hand and the like...). Of course others like worlddraft and such might be able to do similar stuff, but most have to be downloaded/used locally or provide your own assets etc.
I get that you were using a previous coast line. But if I was doing it I would have started with the plate techtonis. As these would have a bit affect on where the land is. As someone has already said, you get two types of plates. Oceanic plates, and continental plates. So you draw out you plates. Name them either ocean or content, which gives you a general shape of you land, and mountains. Which will ditate the shape of your rivers. Which will then affect the finer detail of you coast line. Also you can look at real world examples where these plates interact with each other to give you inspiration. E.g Iceland where two oceanic plates are separating. Himalayas where two continental plates are smashing into each other. Well that's just my opinion.
you said how if plates move towarts each other they create mountains. this is only sometimes. because a plate can be made of heavy rock then making it an oceanic plate and it can also be made of lighter rock making it a continental plate. if both meat each oter the plate made of heavy rock goes under the plate of light rock and you get someting like the andes. when an oceanic plate goes under it takes things with it it and then melts. this creates lighter magma that goes up and creates explosive vulkanoes
Thanks! I've actually been meaning to make a video on that. I think the single best advice I can give is to think about the actual etymology. For example, England means "Land of the Angles", which was a tribe in England. So was the place named after a location? An event? A people/tribe? Would it be in common/English? Or would it be in a different tongue like Elvish or Dwarvish? Then I just think very loosely like "how would I say this in Elvish" and come up with some random words and try to create a name that sounds kind of like that word as if it was all on purpose. I hope that makes sense! I'll make a video on this soon haha
Very cool map. Love the way it looks but I don't know if I would do that. I feel like I already spend a decent amount of time with inkarnate and if thats the shortcut I can only imagine what the long way is like. One thing on inkarnate that yes it's impossible to get smaller to a point with the jagged brush you can get much smaller with the circle brush. I don't know if it's small enough to do this but it might help someone.
What would you advise to use for someone that starts a map from scratch ? I got lore and main continents but did not work on maps yet. BTW At 6:49 there is the cat !
Maybe it's just my untrained eye, but I reckon the tectonic plates are a bit small. Earth has some that are smaller-scale, but most of them span the better part of the continent they affect. Come to think of it, continents are absurdly large and are rarely all alone out in the midst of the ocean. How close do you think the nearest other landmass would be on your map?
Oooo that's good to know, maybe I'll merge a few. So Malidea is actually a moon, so it's smaller in scale in general, but there is a landmass to the south within a few hundred miles
@@tooltiptinkerer Yeah! Tidally locked to a gas giant. There's a lot of stuff I had to think about haha. Made a whole video about the "science" behind it
While I still believe that having a realistic map make it more grounded and believeable, I think that you don't have to respect all the realistic ways of how our world shaped itself. You are making your own world and maybe there are forces and beings that can act on the world, so be creative, BUT at least find and explanation for why is it that way and not the realistic way. In the end you want to have fun !
