Nate Reacts to YOUR Maps

earth is not the greatest place to be right now here in march 2020. fortunately you all have been creating some amazing worlds we can escape to in today's video i react to your maps hi everybody my name is nate and you are watching wasd20 a channel about tabletop rpgs and fantasy maps if that sounds like something you're into i would love to have you subscribe down below and you can also hit that little bell button so that you get notifications when i post new videos so in just a minute here we're going to be looking at a few of the maps that have been submitted over on the nate critiques channel over on the was d20 discord server which i'll put a link to down below just a reminder if you do post any maps there first of all understand very few out of the dozens and dozens that have been posted will actually show up in a video and if you want some actual critique in a prompt fashion please post it on the maps channel not just the nate critiques channel there are a lot of really smart cartographers and world builders over there that are willing to give advice before we get to your maps i do want to give a quick word of thanks to my sponsor for this video nerdarky with their book out of the box encounters this is going to be a huge book full of dnd fifth edition compatible encounters that you can easily slot into your game at any point the book raised about half a million dollars on kickstarter last summer and unlocked tons of awesome stretch goals as you can see here go check out all the detail over at pledges.nerdarky.com and pre-order the book today go check it out thanks nerdarke so the maps because we've got a lot of maps to get through i'm not gonna be able to give super detailed feedback here but i will just point out a couple things that i noticed per map some things i like some things i don't for the first couple i just noticed some possible issues if you want to call them that with the water bodies of water and this one right here it's not so much an issue as it is a question and that is are these right here and this right here intended to be rivers or are they straights because the way they're laid out right now they look like they should be straights in other words we're not going to so much see a river going coast to coast that would be a straight therefore this body of water right here would actually be salt water and these would be rivers draining into that straight the same thing is true right up here and this one definitely reads more like a straight because it's wider the other thing i'll say is i'm not a big fan of the way that rivers often look in incarnate maps like this one and you might try knocking your brush to the thinnest possible setting as you're doing those rivers there and also try the line tool if you actually get a line and you can just draw a line that matches your water that can often create a thinner river that looks better but overall i think you've got a nice map here this one right here wow this is a really nice looking map i really like what i'm seeing the colors especially are just awesome the nice way it blends the bright blue along the coastline as it sort of gets darker to that deep navy blue as it goes further out really nice looking map the thing i'm noticing on this one and the next map is some river bifurcation going on that is when rivers split it is exceedingly rare in nature and on this map it's all over the place now it's a fantasy world and you might have good magical reasons for it and that's totally fine but i just thought i would point it out right here right here looks like right here as well and then down here it's just all over the place now as i'm closer in here maybe this is a marsh and so sometimes people can draw a swampy area with lots of kind of intertwining rivers as a way to represent that it's a swamp but from a distance at least it looked like rivers so you might want to make that look a little more obvious all right next map here is a nice looking one i really like the texture you've got going on with the aged paper it looks super grungy especially in the water there i like the water color a lot i like your mountains here i like the shape of them and the very simple shading style i think really works well there are a couple things i think could improve this map one thing i think is maybe more dense clusters of trees rather than just having them sparsely scattered everywhere and the other thing i think is having a bit of more variation to the coastline and even kind of once in a while with the river going in like that a little bit i think can look nice and this right here too just having a little bit more you know variety to the coastline looks a little boxy in my opinion and the last thing i want to point out here is we do have once again some river bifurcation going on if it's intentional great but just wanted to point that out in case you weren't aware all right next one here i absolutely love this style of mountains here uh it's really cool looking it definitely looks like it was done with a brush pen and it's almost like a japanese brush landscape is what it looks like to me so i really love that it really makes this map unique and it makes it stand out from the crowd that's one of the main reasons i chose this one overall i think you know definitely you mentioned i think in your post that you were thinking about redoing it because the city's got a little messed up and i yeah i agree you know having a little more control of your brush pen in those areas or brush or whatever you're using or maybe using the the finer point that you used on other parts of the map and maybe making them a little bit smaller would be good i think those are things you said you were aware of overall however i think the main piece of feedback i'd give is it's very busy and that can be really good but it also just the trade-off with that is that it makes things hard to pick out like i spent a lot of time looking at this map and i think i finally figured out where the water is supposed to be like i think this is water right here and this is water here and this is water here and yeah but but it took me a while to figure that out looking at the map because it's just so there's so much going on also i just noticed now i think this is a dragon and that's awesome but like i looked at it quite a bit before and i didn't see that so again i think if you kind of make it a little bit less busy you could make those things more visible but that is a trade-off because because just a full map does look cool so i get that too anyway really nice work uh keep it up hope to see more maps from you all right next up man i love the aged paper look here the authentic like tea or coffee soaked and burned edges and everything this one definitely has the feel of like an in-world map you know like someone in this world made this map and i think one of the things that gives it that look is not just the burning of the edges and all that stuff but also that the text it's really cool i like it i think it adds a lot overall i think the thing that could improve this map most is probably adding a bit more peaks to your mountains so you know it looks a bit like it's got that wall effect going on which is semi-realistic actually i just happen to like it better when we actually see some peaks so actually kind of going like this with your coastline here and there could do that and then you can go in and you can make these slopes and it just ends up looking a little more majestic with these towering peaks like that so that's definitely something to consider but overall really nice work on this one alright this one here wow the watercolor it's beautiful i love the colors it just makes it pop it makes it stand out really nicely a lot of us photoshoppers really try to achieve that level of watercolor irregularity digitally and you know you just nailed it you can't do much better than watercolor for that sort of thing i really like that in terms of some critique on this one here i definitely think that the coastline kind of wavy lines look a little bit too much like an elaborate dotted line to me they're just a little bit too predictable in in terms of the breaks in the line so anyway that's just something to consider there and also i'm wondering uh about how heavily populated is this world supposed to be because right now this area you know this area right here it looks like a lot of this world is populated extremely heavily populated and on most fantasy maps and again i don't know much about your world you're gonna see for every acre of town or city you're gonna see like a hundred or more acres of wilderness so anyway just something to think about but overall on this one really nice work it's very bright and colorful i like that and it's very clean as well also if i were writing a campaign or perhaps a book in this world i would definitely call it the shadow of arm see what i did there yeah you know because there's there's the arm oh except it's fantasy so we gotta you know add the little there we go arm all right the next map i honestly have very little critique of this map here it is really nice looking i love the look of the landmasses yeah i just think everything's really well done i love the little bits of island i like the trees i like the mountains i do think maybe the trees could be a bit smaller they're in some cases taller than the mountains so that's something just to think about there but overall i'm really liking what i see here i wonder are there any settlements in this world uh even just seeing like you know a dot or two here or there uh perhaps like some of these places are settlements but putting like a dot right here or something like that would actually indicate to me that it truly is a settlement i also think maybe the compass rose could be a tad bit bigger but uh yeah i'm just nitpicking here great work all right next up wow man another banger this one's gorgeous i love the uh these very kind of dwarven or norse looking dudes here really cool super clean the line work is excellent the mountains look great the trees look great really nice work on this map uh another thing i'm noticing on this one too is is the lack of settlement markers you have text but are any of these places actually settlements i think just having a dot or some kind of icon there would really help sell that to me so really solid map in the first place but then you add in a really clean border this really unique compass rose and these faces in the corners and all of that just adds to it and really helps elevate it even further all right we've got another watercolor map here this one looks a little bit more of like a zoomed in region really liking what i'm seeing here i don't know how you did the i think these are roads here but i'm really impressed that you managed to keep them kind of intact with all the watercolor paint flowing around perhaps you coated them afterwards in white somehow but i don't know really impressed with that and man this took some time check out these trees here really really nice work on those i love the style i love the kind of reddish uh nature of the most of the settlements here and the nice variety in settlements too i do think the mountains could be elevated a little bit higher here and i think maybe making them some other color than white like a brownish or a grayish would also look kind of nice the map does have a lot of stark white all around this colored area and i do kind of wonder what it might look like if you kind of went with an off-white sort of a parchment-y color in the stark white areas and if that might help bring a little more visual balance while still making sure that the main region you're highlighting here in the middle pops out this map is also just another testament to the power of those extra things these coat of arms along the left side here really do help elevate it a lot and your handwriting or i guess i should call it calligraphy is really nice too next all right this one wow this map is freaking adorable i think is the technical term for it it's just it's really cute i mean it's super simple it looks cartoony and i love it bright colorful imaginative really nice work i love the settlements um you know the mountains are a very simple style that i think really works well with the rest of the map he's got these cool icons here the border is nice this title thing is nice the compass rose being kind of a skew is kind of cool and yeah the only minor piece of critique i might offer is if these are not floating islands if this landmass is not floating in the air it kind of looks like that to me and the only reason i say that here is because these edges are kind of all pointed in and yeah they see they seem pointed at the bottom which to me has that traditional look of floating islands so maybe that's what they are and if so well done but if one were wanting to sell them as in the water i think would help if these were not so pointed in but rather kind of went straight down ish here and then like this and similarly over here kind of straight down there also why no love on this one right here no kind of cliffs there but it seems that all the other ones did get some but man this one is a really nice map all right this one here wow a really nice work on the colors here uh it's gorgeous i'm guessing this is a wonder draft map and a couple things i'm wondering about here sorry that was terrible uh are these clouds are these clouds or what's going on here it looks like a forest at a distance like a white forest of some kind and for that matter beware in wonder draft the mountains they don't blend well all these mountains here and here they just kind of look like they're floating above the land a little bit because they're so kind of whitish gray in some very dark areas but beautiful work on the colors of uh the biomes the different regions it looks really really nice i think you've got a great start here also this region right here super interesting i kind of feel like it needs an epilepsy warning it's uh it's a little too crazy for me but maybe there's a good reason for that in your world for it looking like that and if so good on you now our last map here was not posted in the nate critiques channel it was actually in the most recent contest over on the wasd 20 discord channel a contest to create a map for our tavern channel which is kind of a role playing channel that takes place in a tavern so this map is by jog brogzen and he won the contest and i just wanted to say congrats jog your map is amazing you can find jogbrogzen on patreon if you're interested in seeing more of his work he does really great work i've seen immense improvement from him on his work over the last several months and just check out this tavern map the isometric view the multi-levels the gates of umska what a cool name for a map so thanks very much to all of you who submitted maps in the latest discord mapping contest and expect more mapping contests soon so definitely head on over to the discord for the nate critiques channel the awesome feedback other people are giving on the maps channel and stay tuned for a upcoming contest well we did it we made it through a bunch of really awesome maps thanks again to all who submitted maps i'm sorry if we didn't get to yours but i do want to give a quick mention of something that's coming up that i'm really excited about the mapping it was a about monthly or so mapping stream that i used to do on wasd 20 and it was a lot of fun and i really miss it given the whole social distancing thing our world is going through i think it's more and more important for us to have these meaningful connections in any way we can and the mapping is one of those ways that i really used to connect with you the viewers so i'm going to be hosting another mapping coming up the date on that will be friday the 27th of march at 9 00 pm eastern daylight time so mark your calendars the mapping coming up next week friday i'm super excited for it i hope you can join me we'll spend you know an hour and a half two hours just drawing some maps and doodling some things and talking and hanging out together so it should be a lot of fun come on and join in on the live chat lastly before i go i want to give a huge thank you to the wasd20 patrons speaking of mapping streams i do weekly live map drawing streams for my patrons these amazing people help support my work and it's the least i can do for them hanging out with them once a week so if you're interested in that come join us over at patreon.com all right comments questions leave those down below i always love to hear from you if you enjoyed this one make sure you give it a like and uh that's it take care everybody stay healthy you'll see me again very soon [Music] you

Channel: WASD20

Views: 246,142

Keywords: d&d, dungeons and dragons, fantasy maps, dungeons & dragons, dnd, rpg maps, dnd maps, improved maps, how to draw maps, azgaar's fantasy map generator, wonderdraft, wasd20, drawing mountains, wasd20 maps, sellsword maps, cintiq, map review, drawing maps, cartography, fantasy cartography, world building, ttrpg, tabletop, map making, fantasy map making, rpg, discord, mappening, wasd20 discord, social distancing

Id: JD8Py8BVeQs

Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 21 2020