# Anybody care to share their map?



## Johnny Cosmo

I'm just looking to see how others are getting along with mapping their worlds. It's one of my favourite aspects of world-building, and I've been making decent progress with my own map (though I don't feel it's ready to show yet). So, if you have a map, why not let us see your hard work?


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## Ravana

You can check out the ones in the Machiavel "Visual Aids" thread... though I'm hoping to replace them with updated (and computer-generated, rather than scanned drawing) versions soon. There are three versions of the same map: the original (post #1), a second one with tags indicating the locations of the players' baronies (#3), and a recolored one with numbered key rather than the names written on the map (#4). Note that apart from coasts, mountains and major rivers, terrain is not represented, which is in accordance with the purpose of the map: political, not geographic. The revised version, when it appears, will hopefully be considerably clearer; also, I intend to post zoomed sections of it, in order to be able to show subdivisions of the top-level political divisions. 

There's also an outline map of a large city for the Mythic Archipelago project there, though this is very much "outline," intended for development by feedback from multiple individuals, so it lacks nearly all details apart from terrain (and the references that do appear on it won't make a lot of sense unless you've been privy to the discussion about it).


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## Hans

If you want examples of maps, a map for a small side project of mine is here: http://www.5sl.org/~bretscher/broesel/map1_5.jpg
It's a BrÃ¶sel (or crumb) for the weltenbastler community, so where there is no color that's actually empty space. No world there.


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## HÃ«radÃ¯n

1. TiktÃ«n
2. Avyara
3. Zult
4. KamÃ«rÃ«iga
5. ÃvÃ¯narya
6. HÃ«rskÃ«s
7. TochrÃ«ra
8. Hulahanjrie (capital)
9. PÃ«fÃ«nta
10. Altarin
the bit at the top says "ZÃ«wÃ«rath amn ShÃ«gma" sub 'of' for 'amn' under it says AthvÃ¯l-An, which is the name of that bit with all the trees and roads and such.
mapu wa koko da.


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## Johnny Cosmo

@Ravana: It's definitely worth using something other than paint. Personally, I could never get into Gimp, but I have an old copy of Photoshop that I use. A lot of people swear by Gimp though, especially if they're not primarily graphics people, and I'm sure it'd do anything you want when you get used to it. I checked out your Machiavel maps, but they're a little hard to read (as my hand-drawn maps are). 

@Hans: Cool, the texture is nice. It looks a bit empty though, but I guess that's down to taste. I'm feeling the need to mark everything from rivers to mountains on my map.


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## myrddin173

In the first post of the Enessia - Main thread in the Mythic Archipelago I have two city maps that are pen and colored pencil.  I also have one for my main world-building project that has gone through so many permutations over the past six years that you wouldn't think they were related.  Its still very much a work in progress when I fell it's good enough I will probably show it.


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## Leuco

My map isn't much, but maybe it well inspire others to share what cartography they've made. I mean, we take the time to make these maps, why not share them with folks who actually would like to see them? 

I tried to make mine simple, hence the lack of color. I was trying to give my map (and covers) the appearance of those old TSR books you might have read back in the 80's or early 90's. I thought those were cool, but you know, I've seen quite a few in some amateur ebooks that look really impressive. If I could, I'd probably try to make something similar. 

I only included territories on my map (inspired by the Sierra Nevadas) if they were referenced in my book. My story is pretty fast-paced, and the characters don't really do any epic quests for holy grails or anything like that. They pretty much stay within the two conflicting territories and try not to die.

You can probably guess what software I used. I'm obviously not very techno savvy.


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## Hans

Johnny Cosmo said:


> A lot of people swear by Gimp though, especially if they're not primarily graphics people, and I'm sure it'd do anything you want when you get used to it.


The reason many people get into Gimp (me too) is, because it's free and can do about everything they want. People coming from Photoshop often argue Gimp is not intuitive.
My experience with interface design, which is supported in some literature: An intuitive interface is an interface that the people are used to. There is nothing more to it.



> They look a bit empty though, but I guess that's down to taste. I'm feeling the need to mark everything from rivers to mountains on my map.


Yes, I very intensely use different layers for different purposes. My "master file" is very crowded, when I turn on all layers. Crowded enough that the viewer doesn't recognize anything anymore. But that doesn't matter, because unneeded layers can easily be turned off.


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## Johnny Cosmo

> The reason many people get into Gimp (me too) is, because it's free and can do about everything they want. People coming from Photoshop often argue Gimp is not intuitive.
> My experience with interface design, which is supported in some literature: An intuitive interface is an interface that the people are used to. There is nothing more to it.



I agree completely. I've been using photoshop for years, so I just couldn't 'get' Gimp, but I know people who manage to get the job done with it. It being free is a huge pro as well - people should at least try it out.


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## Ophiucha

I made this post on my tumblr about how I enjoy taking maps of and manipulating them in photoshop so that they look like fantasy maps. (That one starts off as Essex.) And I also have this hand-drawn map I made once while I was doodling some buildings (I started with the buildings, then sort of put the rest of the map around it).


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## Ravana

Well, I went ahead and finished my current map with Paint (it was too close to being finished not to, and I wanted to make sure I had at least one complete copy that was all in one format)... and two minutes after I'd done that, I had downloaded GIMP and was making changes. Yeah, it's a _lot_ better. 

I will say that the interface is definitely "less intuitive" than Paint's, by just about anybody's standards... but in large part that's because the latter is so limited it would have been hard to place any of its few functions anywhere that wasn't obvious. (Even for Microsoft, it would've been hard.) Aside from that, I see no reason to favor it, and have no intention of so much as opening it again. Not for mapping, in any event.

Now I just gotta learn how to use all of GIMP's functions. Which means I'm probably going to have to surrender and RTFM at some point, since there are some that I can't even take a good guess at what they do, or at any rate how to get them to do what I think they ought to. But it should be fun. And I probably have to download some symbols from somewhere, since a symbol menu seems to be the one thing that standard GIMP lacks--or at least I couldn't find one last night. (Yes, I know there are some hiding in the Fonts section... probably quite a few, from the looks of things. But I'm not going to press every key on my keyboard just to see what it does. Lists shouldn't be too difficult to find.)


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## Johnny Cosmo

Well, be sure to show us what you come up with!


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## Ravana

First draft of new map is up (in the same old place). Names are still too small, but only barely (I'll go up a couple points on the type next go-round, I suppose); they should probably zoom just fine. While it seems to me to lose some of the personality of a hand-drawn map, I have to admit the gain in legibility is considerable (especially where it involves eliminating my atrocious handwriting, as opposed to just my coloring). 

Now I have to get the maps of the bordering areas up, then zoom everything by parts so I can get the lower-level political divisions in.…


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## Johnny Cosmo

Your new map looks a lot cleaner, it's definitely an improvement. Whilst I would agree that there is a certain charm to hand-drawn maps, I'd prefer them to function well. That said, I've seen some digital maps that are very stylish, with a lot of personality. 

If you fancy some feedback, I think your map would benefit from some small adjustments:


If you made the greens and yellows less strong, then the text would be easier to read.
Considering you have _a lot_ of regions, would it have not been a good idea to draw the map larger? That would have let you use a larger type, and would have also opened up the possibility of marking terrain with more than just colour.


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## Ravana

Heh. The map _is_ larger. A _lot_ larger. That's just the central section–the Empire itself. Doesn't even include all of the bordering kingdoms that were once part of it. Which is why I'm going to do focused sections later on. And even what you're looking at is zoomed back to 30% of its actual size. 

Yeah, I'm going to be making some changes to the color palette next time around. I don't find the colors to be especially strong, myself–though I also keep the brightness turned down a bit on my monitor, so they may look different to others. I am going to try to get that yellow-green to be less aggressive, at any rate. And eliminate the icy blues, much as I love the colors themselves: one of the colors would have been teal, but since it falls squarely between blue and green, it would have been potentially confusing. (If I were the only one who had to read it, the colors would be a lot cooler and closer together on the palette, but that would kind of defeat the purpose here.) The trick is trying to manage sufficient contrast while still giving five color options. Which is easier if I'm not also using groups of colors to indicate relations (all green are X, etc.)… something I started doing in order to enhance general comprehensibility with limited legibility, limited image size and limited file sizes in general. Well, that plus it was outright garish when I was just using a basic five-color scheme overall. At least part of the problem with what you're seeing is that most areas ended up looking mottled, for reasons involving Paint's deficiencies. Which is why I gave up this afternoon on trying to repair what I had and redrafted the whole thing from scratch… rather than going on to at least finish the kingdom maps first, as I'd intended to.

On the other hand, the borders are going to be (and were _supposed_ to be, until Paint had its way with them) color-coded as well… and since those are all going to be high-contrast colors, they may end up being garish as well, even at the size they're going in. Then again, they're nice and visible… even at the size they're going in, even at the same zoom level as the currently posted one. They no longer have "auras" where the program didn't fill to the edges and I didn't get it repainted precisely enough. (The fills are working correctly, too, so each area is only one color.) Both of which represent a substantial improvement, even without doing anything else to it. Definitely still want to increase font size, though.

I was planning on doing a terrain map originally, in addition to a political one, but in fact the terrain has little effect on the game as it's structured: basically, either you can go someplace or you can't, and nothing else matters a whole lot. In my normal mapping mode, it's the terrain that gets marked, political subdivisions only get borders, and you have to figure out for yourself which side of them you're on any given day. (Which is a lot like real life was prior to the days of GPS.)

I still haven't found any symbol/icon sets I like. So I started making my own. The ones I have so far are probably too "lightweight" for most people's purposes (my own included, most likely: they're all drawn with one-pixel-wide lines… though, honestly, they don't look too bad on the map), but I'll attach them anyway, on the off chance anybody wants to make use of them. They're largely derivative of map symbols from _Blaeu's Grand Atlas_ (and its contemporaries), albeit somewhat simplified. One deliberate feature I included was what might at first look like places I missed a spot in a line: in fact, I deliberately drew them so that the interior is all one space, so they can be bucket-filled with one click (which I wanted, even if nobody else needs it).







Hmm. Maybe I shoulda zoomed them a bit before uploading?  (I'm sure I could've put them in a more useful format, too. Perhaps I'll do that once I have a "final" set. In the meantime, they can be copied and converted, I'm sure.)


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## Johnny Cosmo

> Heh. The map _is_ larger. A _lot_ larger. That's just the central section—the Empire itself. Doesn't even include all of the bordering kingdoms that were once part of it. Which is why I'm going to do focused sections later on. And even what you're looking at is zoomed back to 30% of its actual size.





> Hmm. Maybe I shoulda zoomed them a bit before uploading?
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> (I'm sure I could've put them in a more useful format, too. Perhaps I'll do that once I have a "final" set. In the meantime, they can be copied and converted, I'm sure.)



I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. I don't mean the size of your continent/world... I mean the actual size you drew it. The scaling of the whole image is pretty small, and 'zooming in' would decrease the overall quality (you'd have to have created it that way from the start. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding a difference in terminology here.

Also, the reason I make the point about colours is that text can be harder to read on strong colours. And I didn't mean you should not use contrasting colours, but that their shade (and perhaps saturation) could be lighter, like pastel colours for example. They could still be very different colours.


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## Ravana

We're talking about the same thing. The actual size of the map—the computer-generated one, that is, not the original hand-drawn one—is more than three times the size of the image uploaded to this site. To give you some comparison, the proper names are in 24-point font, the division names ("duchy," etc.) in 20-point. That's what I meant when I said you're only seeing it at 30% zoom. That's the nice thing about the computer art, though: if I zoom the hand-drawn one, it's terrible (I know: I tried); whereas if I take, say, the center portion of this up to 100% size, it looks like







( I haven't started adding the text into the new version yet. Just threw that one name on for example purposes… at the original 20-and-24 size. Shoulda thrown a couple of my icons in, too, for fun, but I don't want to go back and upload another version.)

The problem I'm having with the colors is that they start looking too similar to me after a while, and I'm afraid they'll do that for everyone else, too. I have come up with tones I'm slightly happier with (as you should be able to see from the above… at least I hope), but they're still pretty "solid." I'm going to keep toying with them, but I don't want to do too much yet until I work down to the subdivisions. I was hoping what I could do there was to put something akin to a "wash" on them then, so that each subdivision would retain the basic tone of the top level, making it easier to see what parts go together with what. That's going to have to wait for another day, though. (I'm not sure there's a way to do it directly… or, rather, I am sure there is, but I'm not sure I can do it without locating a plug-in for it. May just have to do it manually. If you know of an easy way, do share, please. I'll keep poking at it in the meantime.)

Edit: the actual size of the map in the Machiavel thread is about 2750 x 2250 pixels.


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## Johnny Cosmo

> That's just the central section–the Empire itself. Doesn't even include all of the bordering kingdoms that were once part of it.



It was this that confused me, which seems to be talking about the size of the world, but I understand you now. That's good then, and it makes the colours a little less of a problem, actually.

You mean a way to 'lighten/soften' all of the colours at once? I'm not sure how GIMP handles layers, and if you even used them. But, in photoshop I would do this;

Add a new layer
Fill it white
Set the opacity somewhere between 10 - 30%
Move it so that it is above the coloured regions, but below borders and text
Again, that's _if _you've used layers for different components of the map (which I'm sure GIMP can do). Also, though this is for photoshop, I am sure there will be GIMP equivalents to all of these options.


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## Hans

If you seriously want to go deeper into map making have a look over to the Cartographers Guild. They have some really nice tutorials and other stuff there.


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## Johnny Cosmo

I've taken a look at the stuff over there, a lot of nice maps. I just can't be bothered to sign-up, but thanks for the suggestion. Have you created any maps yourself?


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## HÃ«radÃ¯n

I drew a new map 
UbrÃ¯m
the numbers on there are where cities/larger towns/castles, most are not yet named.


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## Ravana

Johnny Cosmo said:


> It was this that confused me, which seems to be talking about the size of the world, but I understand you now. That's good then, and it makes the colours a little less of a problem, actually.



Okay, I can see that. Both are true, actually: the map is much larger "in real life," _and_ it covers a lot more space than is shown. 

I went ahead and turned the saturation down on all the colors–and, yeah, I'm happier with them now. Not sure how it'll play out when I go to the finer details; worst case, it'll just be borders and labels, and the colors won't change.

In fact, I'm considering going back to an all-white map anyway… because redoing all the fills created that "mottled" look again. At least, I _think_ that's what did it: could also be saving them as .jpg… I noticed the portion I posted last night was displaying that way. Or maybe both. I've started saving the working files in GIMP's home format, so I suppose I'll find out soon enough. 



> You mean a way to 'lighten/soften' all of the colours at once? I'm not sure how GIMP handles layers, and if you even used them. But, in photoshop I would do this;
> 
> Add a new layer
> Fill it white
> Set the opacity somewhere between 10 - 30%
> Move it so that it is above the coloured regions, but below borders and text
> Again, that's _if _you've used layers for different components of the map (which I'm sure GIMP can do). Also, though this is for photoshop, I am sure there will be GIMP equivalents to all of these options.



I don't have a choice about using layers in GIMP, once I add text: that's a separate layer. Worse, _each_ text box is a separate layer, so if I want to adjust them, I need to do it one at a time. (I imagine that's true in other programs as well; just saying.) Or they are until I close the map and reopen it, at which point they're anchored to the background (which I can do while it's still open, though it took me a while to realize this). I'm still trying to figure out if there's a way to re-select them after it's reopened, or if I need to get happy with my color layer before I add anything else. Right now, I'm just erasing whenever one proves inconvenient.

Thanks, that set of steps ought to work: I hadn't been thinking of adding another color layer. (Not sure why, since I was essentially looking for something that did precisely that, just as a direct function.) I won't mind if it fades the borders a touch as well–they're still the fully vivid colors: red, violet, etc.–which is a good thing, since they're all on the same level as the fills (obviously, from what I just said). Maybe making those separate layers would help prevent some of the "bleeding" the colors are doing. Unfortunately, I got stupid and didn't save a map with only the borders, so I'd have to lay those down yet again, but that actually has been far less time-consuming than the rest of the process, so it may well be worth it.


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## Johnny Cosmo

On layers: there must be a 'merge layers option' in GIMP? Or at least, a folder system (where you can add all of the text into a 'text' folder). I know you can in Photoshop, and you should be able to in GIMP.

You'll probably get used to this sort of thing thing the more you use it. It might be worth looking up some basic tutorials.


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## Hans

Johnny Cosmo said:


> On layers: there must be a 'merge layers option' in GIMP? Or at least, a folder system (where you can add all of the text into a 'text' folder). I know you can in Photoshop, and you should be able to in GIMP.


You can merge the layers. But that changes the text to pixels, so it can no longer be edited as text.


Ravana, have you any experience with scripting? Gimp can be scripted which is a big help when doing the same things to lots of layers.
Of course you can reopen the text layer later. If you have not changed it with any non text tool: Just select the text tool and click (maybe double click) on the layer in the layer selection box.


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## Johnny Cosmo

Can you not group multiple layers into a folder, and apply universal effects and properties?


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## Hans

Johnny Cosmo said:


> Can you not group multiple layers into a folder, and apply universal effects and properties?


The newest version of Gimp should be able to do that. It was a long requested feature and IIRC they (the Gimp devellopment team) said it would now be implemented.
I have not tried it yet.


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## Hans

For something completely different: I once prepared the map of my main world for the Marble viewing program. There is not much to see yet, it was more of an experiment: http://swyrtr.de/swyrtrMarble.tar.bz2

For viewing the content of that file have to be copied into the Marble map directory. At my computer that is: ~/.marble/data/maps


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## RainbowGirl

Do you guys know of any other programs that are good for map making. (excluding the ones already discussed.)


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## Hans

RainbowGirl said:


> Do you guys know of any other programs that are good for map making. (excluding the ones already discussed.)


The most flexibility you have with general graphic programs. You need an idea about how your map should look like and maybe a good tutorial for that style.
In this thread we mainly had pixel graphic tools but many people swear on vector graphics for maps. Like Corel Draw, or if you want a free one Inkscape.

Tools for map making that give some freedom of style, but not longer as much as above painting tools are programs like Campaign Cartographer or AutoREALM.

Also I've seen good maps created with different mapping tools originally created for computer games. Maybe Wesnoth is worth to look at for this purpose. These tools generally dictate the style, the resulting map has to have and thus are recognizeable for someone who knows the game.


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## Johnny Cosmo

As Hans mentioned, there are a bunch. I wanted to use InkScape, but it crashes on my Mac. I've tried Hexographer, but working with tiles is restrictive, and is only really useful for planning, not visualising your world. Read a lot about Campaign Cartographer... but I don't think it's worth it. 

I honestly think it'd be best to get used to GIMP or InkScape (if it works for you), because you'll be saving money, and it's not like you can't create a great map with those tools.


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## SeverinR

Kobalta's map by ~SeverinR on deviantART
My first map just an hour after downloading it.(autorealm)
It wasn't easy to work with but it did make a good map.


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## Ravana

Johnny Cosmo said:


> As Hans mentioned, there are a bunch. I wanted to use InkScape, but it crashes on my Mac.



Had that problem, too… you need to be running the X11 environment, if you aren't already. (If you are, can't help you: I never got the chance to install this before my Mac suffered a somewhat more permanent "crash." Note that if you're still using 10.4, you have to load X11 from the system disk, whereas with any other version of 10.x, you can download it.) I'm seriously thinking about giving InkScape another try; think it might help address some of the problems I'm experiencing. I need a "draw" program, anyway, more than a "paint" one: anyone have any other recommendations? I could also use a decent CAD program, if anyone knows of any free ones that are worth the bother of learning to use. If not, guess I'll just wait until I can afford AutoCAD or whatever, so that I only have to learn once.

AutoREALM didn't impress me, though I may not have been looking deeply enough. If I'm remembering Campaign Cartographer correctly, I had the same reaction to it, though I may well be thinking of something else with a similar name. I've looked at so many recently.…


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## Hans

Also always remember, it is still you who makes the map.
I'm not talking to anyone in special here, just my experience from the German Weltenbastler community, where this topic also repeatedly comes up.
Every tool you might use as powerful or specialized it might be is still a tool. A program where you press two or tree buttons and have the perfect map does not exist. Can not exist, because everyone has different expectations for that "perfect map". There is no way around learning to use the tools and putting a little work into map making.
How much this little work exactly is depends on your expectations for the map.

I've seen some "fully automated city/island/whatsoever" generators. But found all of them lacking. Maybe my expectations are to high. Normally I have an idea about what I want to create, but if the tool is really full automated there is no way of telling the tool that. Else it would be semi automated, and that is much harder to program. I'm speaking from experience, I am a programmer.

Sorry for the rant.


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## Johnny Cosmo

> Had that problem, too… you need to be running the X11 environment, if you aren't already.



I am, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Would have loved to used vector software.



> Every tool you might use as powerful or specialized it might be is still a tool. A program where you press two or tree buttons and have the perfect map does not exist. Can not exist, because everyone has different expectations for that "perfect map". There is no way around learning to use the tools and putting a little work into map making.



I couldn't agree more, and this is why I'm certain any decent graphics editor (free or paid) can get the job done. I work with a lot of DAWs (digital audio workstations); it doesn't matter how specific some of their functions are, and how 'geared' towards a certain style of audio recording they are, they all do the same thing when it boils down to it. So just learn what you can get hold of (great if that's PhotoShop, or one of these mapping tools, but still perfectly fine if that means GIMP or InkSpace), and learn it.


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## SeverinR

I agree Autorealm is very hard to learn, I started 8 maps and deleted them before I figured out how to work with it.

It is amazing how much clearer my story is now that I can see the real map rather then just the map in my head.

I will probably try doing a castle lay-out(Letholdus Keep) next.  
I am in morning, I cleaned out my work computer files and deleted this story, so I had to go to my back up...which I hadn't updated in over *a month*. 
So I will work on peripheral stuff until I am ready to start again.  Actually I was kind of embarassed by how little I had completed in that month. (But it is the work story, that I write at work during free time.)

I would not buy autorealm, but it does the job.


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## Johnny Cosmo

> I've seen some "fully automated city/island/whatsoever" generators. But found all of them lacking. Maybe my expectations are to high. Normally I have an idea about what I want to create, but if the tool is really full automated there is no way of telling the tool that.



Just to add: I usually like to have full control. It might mean that I don't initially shape my continent very realistically, and I have to develop it for it to look good - but I know it inside and out when I get there.


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## RainbowGirl

Hans said:


> The most flexibility you have with general graphic programs. You need an idea about how your map should look like and maybe a good tutorial for that style.
> In this thread we mainly had pixel graphic tools but many people swear on vector graphics for maps.



I know how I want it to look, generally speaking. How do I figure out what style it is?
And whats the difference between pixel graphic tools and vector graphics?


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## Johnny Cosmo

Why don't you post some maps you want to imitate? 

Pixels can't be upscaled without losing some quality. Vectors allow you to do this, and it recalculates how the image should look. If you draw a map and realise it's too small, you can later upscale it without loss, and the edges will still be clean. With pixel based image editing... you're pretty much stuck with what you started.


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## RainbowGirl

I'm not sure how to put pictures into a thread but this one:

Google Images

Is what I would like it to end up as. Maybe not the same colors as they picked, but that general idea is along the lines of what I want.


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## Johnny Cosmo

Well, that's going to take some practice no matter what software you use. I'd probably suggest general graphics software (GIMP, Photoshop, etc), because you won't be as restricted as far as design goes. 

Perhaps you ought to find some tutorials to guide you.


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## Hans

RainbowGirl said:


> Is what I would like it to end up as. Maybe not the same colors as they picked, but that general idea is along the lines of what I want.


That map makes heavy uses of customized brushes. For GIMP have a look here: GIMP - Custom Brushes Tutorial Other tools have similar functions.
Maybe someone has already made these brushes for your preferred tool. Just look around a bit. The rest is exercise. Don't expect your first map to be perfect but tray again repeatedly and you will become better.

For the texture experiment with random noise functions. Make them blend out at the layers, so they don't give hard borders. Layer masks can help with that.

Some general remarks: Make the map larger than your result should be. At least double, maybe more. And use lots of layers. Layers are much more easily combined than split.


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## RainbowGirl

@Johnny I figured it would. I just had no idea where to begin. Thank you, for showing me that by the way.

@Hans Thank you for the tips. =) Quick question though, what is/does a random noise function do?


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## Ravana

Hans said:


> Some general remarks: Make the map larger than your result should be. At least double, maybe more. And use lots of layers. Layers are much more easily combined than split.



Since you seem to be the GIMP man hereabouts, and since I'm too lazy to look it up: I have one layer of terrain, including rivers and seacoasts, and am working a second layer involving political boundaries. Is there any way to get it so that if I want to fill political regions (by border), it also reads the rivers/coastlines as "borders", without making them the same layer? (I have thought of one solution–well, two, actually: the second one is to draw "water"-colored borders around all my water features–but I'm hoping there's some easier way.)

Also–and ultimately more importantly for me–is there a way to stop adjacent colors from "bleeding" into one another, when they're on the same layer? GIMP (even Paint) would work fine for my purposes, if it would just stop doing this.  Or should I just give up now and start working on a vector map… assuming they won't do that there, too?


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## Hans

I'm answering here because it was asked here, but I think we are going a bit off topic now. Moderators feel free to move this to a more appropriate place.



Ravana said:


> Since you seem to be the GIMP man hereabouts,


I am far from being an artist, but I generally have some basic technical knowledge what can be done with most GIMP functions.



> I have one layer of terrain, including rivers and seacoasts, and am working a second layer involving political boundaries. Is there any way to get it so that if I want to fill political regions (by border), it also reads the rivers/coastlines as "borders", without making them the same layer? (I have thought of one solution–well, two, actually: the second one is to draw "water"-colored borders around all my water features–but I'm hoping there's some easier way.)


You can easily create a selection in one layer and use it (for example fill it) in an other layer. Selecting by color should recognize your rivers.
Does that answer your question? If not I blame it on language issues.



> Also–and ultimately more importantly for me–is there a way to stop adjacent colors from "bleeding" into one another, when they're on the same layer?


Older versions of GIMP did this by default so I was a bit surprised that this function is so well hidden now. Select->Sharpen should be what you are looking for.

Gimp has some very basic vector functions. Look at paths for that. These are only rudimental when compared to real vector programs, but can be pretty useful.



RainbowGirl said:


> Quick question though, what is/does a random noise function do?


A random noise function gives you random structures. A simple one would only generate irregularities, dots of different gray values. Other noise functions use fractal algorithms to create cloud like structures, you might want to use one of these functions (e.g. in Gimp Filter->Render->Clouds->Difference Clouds) to create some colorized "dirt" on your map. Make this in a new layer and make that layer nearly transparent to have a texture effect.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

> I'm answering here because it was asked here, but I think we are going a bit off topic now. Moderators feel free to move this to a more appropriate place.



I think it should be fine. At least, I don't mind discussing map-building here too.


----------



## RainbowGirl

Hans said:


> A random noise function gives you random structures. A simple one would only generate irregularities, dots of different gray values. Other noise functions use fractal algorithms to create cloud like structures, you might want to use one of these functions (e.g. in Gimp Filter->Render->Clouds->Difference Clouds) to create some colorized "dirt" on your map. Make this in a new layer and make that layer nearly transparent to have a texture effect.



Okay, that makes sense thanks. =)


----------



## sashamerideth

I am thinking with all this aand my planned re-write nagging me that I should make myself a map. Not like one that anyone else will see but a. map I can use to track travel times, plot locations and just generally get a sense of scale.

Need to figure out how many people and therefore how much farmland they will need.


----------



## Ravana

Hans said:


> I am far from being an artist, but I generally have some basic technical knowledge what can be done with most GIMP functions.



Puts you way ahead of me. I'm neither an artist nor a "computer person."  (And to top it off, all my previous computes were Macs, so I'm still trying to sort out how to do much of _anything_.…)



> You can easily create a selection in one layer and use it (for example fill it) in an other layer. Selecting by color should recognize your rivers.



…and not being either should be apparent from the fact that it didn't occur to me to do this–in spite of the fact that I'm already creating my own brushes for map icons. Worked great. Thanks.



> Older versions of GIMP did this by default so I was a bit surprised that this function is so well hidden now. Select->Sharpen should be what you are looking for.



I think the problem was that I wasn't saving the files in GIMP's format (I was saving them as .jpg, which is the least space-consuming of the formats that can be posted here). Haven't noticed it doing this now that I'm saving as .xcf. But it's still good to know where to look if this continues to be problematic. Thanks again. 

Now if only I can keep the images as clean once I _am_ ready to post them.…


----------



## sashamerideth

.xcf isn't a lossy compression format like JPEG is.  That's part of your bleed, saving in a lossy format.

I am thinking of a bumpmap of random noise, tweaking thresholds and then applying a gradient for water, plains, hilly woodlands and snowy mountains.  I'll post here when I have a first iteration that I like.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

> I think the problem was that I wasn't saving the files in GIMP's format (I was saving them as .jpg, which is the least space-consuming of the formats that can be posted here).



Wait, do you mean you're _only_ saving in .jpg? You should keep a copy in the GIMP project format.


----------



## Ravana

Was saving as .jpg only. Not doing it any more. Definitely lossy, even at 100% [sic] fidelity. (Something I'm happy I actually figured out on my own… considering I'm not a computer person.  )

Which is really annoying, because there were only two types of objects on these maps. (1) The borders–which the program has to save in terms of exact positions (most of them are a single pixel wide), or else it wouldn't be able to display them later, which it does (albeit with color bleeds…); thus, this data _can't_ be compressed. (2) The fills–which are simply "everything else," as defined by the borders, and which the program has to save in terms of a single color code for each region: this data can't be made any _smaller_ than it already is. In other words, there is no way for the image to be encoded with any _less_ data than it was presented with at save: "compressing" this data actually results in a _more_ complex image than was drawn. A complexity that is perpetuated and expanded with each additional save, as adjacent colors _continue_ to bleed as a result of its compression sampling, which at this point is now sampling colors that didn't exist in the original image. 

I can understand why a program might compress a complex, multihued image with numerous adjacent shades and no sharp outlines–a photo, for instance, or a painting. (I'd hate to see what it did to my desktop background: Van Gogh's _Starry Night_.) It's sloppy coding that it can't detect when an image is already as simple as it can possibly get.

(Some day when I'm really bored, I'm going to create an image with a single pixel of color in the center of a white field, then save it repeatedly as a .jpg at, say, 50% fidelity, just to see how long it takes for the entire image to pick up some shade of that one dot. Stupid program.)


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

I'm pretty sure JPG is geared towards photographs, and GIF and PNG are geared toward more simple images. JPG has more complicated colours, and it sort of 'blends' the image. If you were working with photograph compression, this might be useful to make the loss in detail less noticeable... but since you're using pretty simple colours, GIF or PNG should look better (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Have you tried using these other formats?

*Edit: *PNG would probably be the better choice, as GIF can go horribly wrong if you don't limit the original image to 256 colours! Plus, PNG are smaller I think.


----------



## sashamerideth

PNG should be best for maintaining lines as it is the best format for preserving text in images for the web.  GIF is indexed so uses a limited pallet of color to save, as well as animation.


----------



## Ravana

May try converting to .png rather than .jpg next time I have something to post. The problem is I always end up wrestling with file sizes: it has to fall within the forum's limits. Oh, well. We'll see what happens.


----------



## sashamerideth

Ravana, there is a free program that can resize to a target file size. Will post again when I can remember it.

For JPEG at least it works best when the height and width are a multiple of 8 or 16 just because of how Tue algorithms work.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

@Ravana: if it's too hard to meet the forum limits, why not use external image hosting and link to that?


----------



## Hans

Johnny Cosmo said:


> PNG would probably be the better choice, as GIF can go horribly wrong if you don't limit the original image to 256 colours! Plus, PNG are smaller I think.


True color PNG is a lot larger than GIF. But PNG with palette is normally smaller than the same GIF.
For images like Ravana wants to create with her political maps I would think palettes are better than true color. For one, if you want to change the color of one country, simply change the palette entry color. Also whenever you want to do anything else with your map than just viewing you can correspond palette numbers to  countries. (Yes, that is the programmer in me.)

But that is for the final result. Any intermediate states should be in GIMPs own XCF format. Because no other format can store all the information GIMP can have in an image. Like layers, alpha layers, paths and so on. You won't need these information in the final result, but will be happy to have them at all stages of editing.
Same goes for other programs and their project formats.


----------



## Ravana

Johnny Cosmo said:


> @Ravana: if it's too hard to meet the forum limits, why not use external image hosting and link to that?



I've been considering it. But I think the latest result is enough to encourage me to stick with what I've got going, at least for the time being. Check out the "Kingdom of Lorthegnar" map in Machiavel "Visual Aids." Believe it or not, that _is_ a .jpg file, too–after I spent some time twiddling with the save settings. (And of course it's only saved that way for uploading here; the original is still .xcf.) And it's barely a tenth the size of a max-fidelity .png file… though, irritatingly, it's _larger_ than the .xcf file is. Which bears out what I was saying about the image already being as "compressed" as it can get in the first place.…

Oh, well. As long as it works.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

That's looking pretty nice, but have you not considered experimenting with different quality PNG files, since they're geared towards this kind of thing, and _might_ give you a better result than that?

 And I wouldn't compare an exported image file with a project file like XCF anyway, it's not quite the same thing.

*Edit:* I just thought I'd add: your colours are a lot nicer now.


----------



## Ravana

Johnny Cosmo said:


> That's looking pretty nice, but have you not considered experimenting with different quality PNG files, since they're geared towards this kind of thing, and _might_ give you a better result than that?



Eventually, perhaps. Right now, I just want to get this done for the time being. I'll worry about experimenting later. Though considering the .jpg file size (at present quality) on my comp is 600k, and the .png (at maximum quality) is 5.6M, I'm not sure how far I'd have to drop the latter to equal the former. (Even at max quality, the .jpg was only 1.3M.)



> I just thought I'd add: your colours are a lot nicer now.



Thank you. I thought so too. (You didn't get to see the intermediary step, where I'd backed off on the saturation: it also looked pretty good, but had its own disadvantages. To wit.…) I'm not going to be able to do what I'd originally planned in terms of shading the subdivisions–the differences are either too subtle, end up looking too much like one of the other colors, or make the subdivisions look like they aren't–but I think I've found a feasible way around that anyway. Assuming it doesn't screw up the uploaded image quality, at least. Might find out tonight, depending on how much time I can devote to it.


----------



## Elishimar

I had trouble being unique whenever I was drawing maps, but I kept at it, and I ended up not only being unique, but more refined in my abilities hand drawing them. I found this site to be really helpful How to Create Fantasy Worlds - One Of Us Creative Writing Website When I get a chance, I will get a picture of my map and post it tomorrow.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

I look forward to it. I'm still trying to pluck up the courage to show mine (although I'm thinking of redesigning it anyway).


----------



## Elishimar

Alright, here is the link to my photobucket with my map. I apologize, it may be a little hard to see as it is a pencil drawing. I can't find where I put my pen rendering of it, so I will make a new one this weekend, and share that as well. By the way this is only one region of my map, i will have to find my world map as well. Either way it is a good example of how I am dealing with map making, and I hope it helps.


----------



## Elishimar

I decided to spend some time Microsoft paint, at about an hour's worth of work, I came up with this.


----------



## ascanius

Don't know if anyone has posted this but i found a great program that is free for making maps.  It's called Autorealm, it was designed for role-playing but I found it works great especially since you can use fractal lines to create coasts and shorelines along with custom icons. It's only draw back that I could find is that it has a learning curve to fully utilize all it's features.  And you have to make closed lines to color entire areas or the whole screen will change that color.  Also a nice feature is it can calculate the distances between two points in many different units.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

Yeah, there was a thread that covered Autorealm not long back. It's probably worth a read.


----------



## Fiain

Hey all! I'm new to this thread, so I apologize if I do something wrong haha but here are a few maps I've created for a world I'm working on. These are just the bare bones; I'm working on a climate map and culture map, so hopefully I can post that sometime haha. I would love to hear what you all think of them.













[/IMG]


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

My only thought is that you could have linked to the images, since they break the post boundaries (but not by much, so it's not too bad).

As for your maps, they look good, and I look forward to seeing something more complete when you get around to it! I like the continent shapes, nice job. So how big are these continents?


----------



## Fiain

The middle continent is about the size of North America. And thank you the feedback! These are my first maps, so I'm still kind of learning haha


----------



## ascanius

Hey Fiain what program did you use?  I'm using autorealms simply because I can use layers for Political, settlement, terrain and notes to go from detailed to less detailed, and I haven't found anything else that is free.  I tried using gimp but haven't been able to make any headway with it.  Also did you design the maps based off your story or did you base your story off your map.  I had an idea of what how I wanted my map to look and designed it more around the story to fit some specific events and scenarios, though I am finding some problems with this.  Another question how did you go about determining forest and river density?  I take it the rivers shown are only main rivers.  What about distances did you figure those into your map as you created it?  I like it a lot.  It looks clean and simple, good job.


----------



## Elishimar

Where can I get autorealm?


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

Here. I don't use it myself, but I hear it's good.


----------



## Fiain

ascanius said:


> Hey Fiain what program did you use?  I'm using autorealms simply because I can use layers for Political, settlement, terrain and notes to go from detailed to less detailed, and I haven't found anything else that is free.  I tried using gimp but haven't been able to make any headway with it.  Also did you design the maps based off your story or did you base your story off your map.  I had an idea of what how I wanted my map to look and designed it more around the story to fit some specific events and scenarios, though I am finding some problems with this.  Another question how did you go about determining forest and river density?  I take it the rivers shown are only main rivers.  What about distances did you figure those into your map as you created it?  I like it a lot.  It looks clean and simple, good job.



Hahaha I just used paint and went pixel by pixel lol I feel that it lets me get a good, hand-drawn feel out of my maps but is still easier to edit and add things to than a real hand drawn one. It takes a while haha but I think it is worth it. And the story of mine is probably blended in with the map; as in, I know what kind of country (climate, culture, etc) I want it to start in, and thus made sure my map had an area like that. And yes, only the main rivers are shown, as are only the most heavily wooded areas. I simply took what seemed realistic and combined it with what looked good haha. Distances was something that I didn't bother with at all; I wanted to creat the map, put things where I want them, then worry about distances later. Hope that explained things a lilttle bit haha I have never used autorealms.


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## Johnny Cosmo

You did all that in paint, pixel by pixel? That must've taken quite some time! It's certainly given your continent borders a nice look.


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## Elder the Dwarf

Is there a good free software for mac users?


----------



## ascanius

I tip my hat to you Fiain, indeed I do.  You did a good job with the map, and display a deal more patience than I would ever care to exhibit.  Sorry I cant help you Elder the Dwarf, I'm a windows user.  I found Autorealms on chance doing a search for fantasy map making software.  You might want to try that.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

I haven't seen any decent software for Mac I'm afraid. Instead, I've been hand-drawing, scanning, and importing them into a graphics editor (Photoshop, or GIMP if you want a free alternative). The learning curve is probably steeper, but learn to use a graphics editor and you can do anything cartography software can do, and more.


----------



## Fiain

ascanius said:


> I tip my hat to you Fiain, indeed I do.  You did a good job with the map, and display a deal more patience than I would ever care to exhibit.  Sorry I cant help you Elder the Dwarf, I'm a windows user.  I found Autorealms on chance doing a search for fantasy map making software.  You might want to try that.



Haha well thank you very much! To be honest, I just blare some trance tunes and get in the groove, and time kinda just zooms by haha just remember that if you DO make a map in paint, to save it as a .png, or else you'll get these nasty blurry gray lines around everything that you draw. I had to learn the hard way, and spent nearly two weeks going along every single line eraseing all the extra marks hahaha

EDIT: Also, can someone help me figure out the best way to upload pics? I'm trying to figure it out, but they keep breaking the boundaries. Anyway, here is a political map that I've made in Paint.


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## Johnny Cosmo

@Fiain: You're map is looking very nice, though the red text gets a bit lost in places (perhaps you could use a bolder font, and a lighter shade). As for image sizes, it might be best to create a PhotoBucket.com account (or another photo hosting website), upload them there, and then link to the image.


----------



## Fiain

Thank you! I've been useing Flickr, and it just doesn't work haha. And yea, as for font size, I was worried it was going to be TOO big, but it could probably be a bit bolder. And maybe not red. haha thanks for the feedback


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## Johnny Cosmo

I'm not sure why Flickr doesn't work for you, that's pretty popular. The size looks fine. I think it's mostly the shade of red. If it was brighter it would contrast with the browns and dark greens better.


----------



## Centerfield97

My rough draft for a map...it's an update of an older map I made a few months ago.  I'm still considering changing it to be completely different but i like to play around with things like this!


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## Fiain

Sorry, but your picture wont show for me?


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## Centerfield97

Fiain said:


> Sorry, but your picture wont show for me?



Sorry here it is!

Map | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


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## Johnny Cosmo

The land below the Crow's Beak looks a bit odd to me, but it's probably fine. All in all, I'm a fan of interesting shapes, so nice work. Hope to see a more developed version soon!

I've just completely redesigned my map. I kept a lot of features, but the shape is more realistic and I've altered it to help the pacing of the story (I have four planned POV characters, and I wanted their journey's to align somewhat). I might eventually get around to posting a version of my map here. Eventually.


----------



## Centerfield97

Johnny Cosmo said:


> The land below the Crow's Beak looks a bit odd to me, but it's probably fine. All in all, I'm a fan of interesting shapes, so nice work. Hope to see a more developed version soon!
> 
> I've just completely redesigned my map. I kept a lot of features, but the shape is more realistic and I've altered it to help the pacing of the story (I have four planned POV characters, and I wanted their journey's to align somewhat). I might eventually get around to posting a version of my map here. Eventually.



The land below Crow's Beak is called the Sinking Isles, sea level is rising and that portion of the continent is slowly going underwater, hence the odd shape.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Here is the map of Elan the fictional world of my Riyria Revelations:

http://www.michaelsullivan-author.com/images/elan_large_map.jpg


----------



## Centerfield97

MichaelSullivan said:


> Here is the map of Elan the fictional world of my Riyria Revelations:
> 
> http://www.michaelsullivan-author.com/images/elan_large_map.jpg



What program did you use to make this?


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

@Centerfield97: I guess that makes sense. 

@MichaelSullivan: That's a very stylish map, though it's a little hard to read in places. Is the climate cold and the map white due to ice and snow, or is it just the style of map?


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

It'd be a shame to let this topic get pushed onto the second page and forgotten, because I really enjoy seeing all your maps. So, I think it's about time I shared the latest version of my map. I've taken off all the names because I've grown paranoid about revealing them after spending so long constructing them, so my map looks a little empty. I've also resized it so I can link display the image on the forums, rather than linking.


----------



## Devor

That's pretty, Johnny Cosmo.  I'm glad you shared that.

How many countries are on each continent?  It helps give an idea of the scale of the thing.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

At the time of my story the two continents are considered two countries. The left is home to one kingdom, and could previously have been referred to as three separate countries, but now they're called regions of the same large country. The right is home to four city-states that used to be part of another kingdom, each controlling a region. I've still not worked out all the details.

The whole thing is about the size of Europe (or perhaps a little bit smaller), but arranged differently.


----------



## Devor

I've been trying to build up the courage to post this for a few days now.

I originally made my map a long time ago in the map editor of an old video game called Lords of Magic.  It worked for the scale I was going for.  But picking up the project lately with a great deal more seriousness, there's just no way that old map editor could do the trick.

Here's the map.  The compass points have been rotated.  On the world map, which has very little detail, the peninsula doesn't point straight up.

This is the map of one very small country, and I'm pretty sure almost all of it will prove necessary or at least useful for the story I'm hoping to tell.  Yellow indicates farmland.  Any shields are fortified military locations, some of them very small.  There is a city on the large island but it's shaded to stand out over the water.  The country claims the entire peninsula and the islands, but the right-half is extremely dangerous.  You need an armed escort to get safely from "C," Chasm Edge Point, to the two "W"s, Wayhaven Points, to the sparsely populated town on the bottom.

I think it looks a little mushroomy myself, but I'm not going to worry about that right now.  I think that if I gave it to an artist that could be fixed without significant changes to the content.


----------



## Jabrosky

This is a crude, unlabeled, tentative Paint sketch of my conword Gorrinth. As you can see, its geography was heavily inspired by our Earth's Old World. The brown streaks represent mountain ranges.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

> I've been trying to build up the courage to post this for a few days now.



Don't worry about that, it took me about two weeks!



> I think it looks a little mushroomy myself, but I'm not going to worry about that right now. I think that if I gave it to an artist that could be fixed without significant changes to the content.



I think some reshaping would be beneficial, but the features (bodies of water, mountains, et cetera) are good as obstacles. I started with a map that was little more than a blob with a bit of a shaping, and developed it to become more memorable (I think), so it just takes time. It can be hard to let go and redesign though.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

@Jabrowsky: It looks _very _inspired by the real world. Have you considered flipping the whole thing horizontally? That would really distinguish it from the real-world Eurasia and Africa look. Unless you're completely happy with it, in which case - leave it be!

Paint has given you a clean, bold look, and it seems as functional as it needs to be. Nice work.


----------



## Jabrosky

Johnny Cosmo said:


> @Jabrowsky: It looks _very _inspired by the real world. Have you considered flipping the whole thing horizontally? That would really distinguish it from the real-world Eurasia and Africa look.



Although my world is meant to be based on our own world's antiquity, I'll do that.


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## Johnny Cosmo

It was just a suggestion to distance it from our world, but if it makes sense the way it is then perhaps you should keep it. Though, flipping the map wouldn't necessarily sever the tie with our own classical and middle age cultures, so it's not like it would be _wrong_ if you flipped the map and the ethnic groups went with it.


----------



## Jabrosky

OK, Gorrinth's geography has been flipped and some place labels have been added:

BIG image


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

Ahh, I was imagining it horizontally flipped rather than vertically, but I guess it doesn't really matter. Nice to see some labels, I find they make a map look much better.


----------



## The Grey Sage

Centerfield97 said:


> What program did you use to make this?


I second this, I would really like to know!


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Centerfield97 said:


> What program did you use to make this?



Unfortunately I don't recall...I did it years ago - probably almost a decade. I was able to create the ocean, land forms etc then after it was made I used photoshop to add town and landmarks etc.


----------



## MichaelSullivan

Johnny Cosmo said:


> @MichaelSullivan: That's a very stylish map, though it's a little hard to read in places. Is the climate cold and the map white due to ice and snow, or is it just the style of map?



Thanks, I agree it is getting hard to read because I have "dinked" with it so many time with various resolutions etc. One day I need to strop off all the towns and rebuild it from the bottom up but I just don't have any cycles to devote to it.

The color does not indicate climate. Elan is similar to earth in that it has 4 seasons an it mirrors that of the Northn Hempishere - in other words Winter is cold and it snows, Spring is warm, etc, etc.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

> The color does not indicate climate. Elan is similar to earth in that it has 4 seasons an it mirrors that of the Northn Hempishere - in other words Winter is cold and it snows, Spring is warm, etc, etc.



I guessed so. 

And as for the software, no matter what it was actually created in, it's entirely achievable in Photoshop (or something similar). I can't imagine any cartography software having the flexibility to pull that off, but I could be wrong.


----------



## Thalian

Hopefully someday soon I will "finally" finish my world map. What once started as one piece of scrap paper has turned into 10+ pages, all of which is pretty detailed. Maybe I will post a pic of a section of my work, it is hand drawn as that is what I prefer (I'm not a fan of digitally rendered maps, but that's a matter of personal taste).


----------



## Ophiucha

So this happened... I was messing with difference clouds. No further explanation.


----------



## Thalian

Cool outline!


----------



## Lamar

Here's a link to the map for my current WIP. http://www.wildhavencreative.com/tellurian04.png


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

@Ophiucha: Nice, I like the colours.


----------



## Cinder

I LOVE MAPS.

Now we've got that out of the way, I'd like to share one of the many I've created!

The world is called Sephyr. It's a pretty simple map, but I think it's sweet. 

http://i523.photobucket.com/albums/w357/Evanthorne/Fantasy/Sephyrmap.jpg

By the way, an artistic friend of mine drew the map from my really bad outline.


----------



## Elder the Dwarf

I like that Lamar... in large part because the name reminds me of my personal favorite place in the world.  (our world, not yours )


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

Thanks for sharing Cinder - very nice.


----------



## Elder the Dwarf

Cinder, that map is awesome!  I wish I could draw like that, I've tried several times but failed miserably... oh well.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

Oh, I missed yours Lamar. I like it a lot, very clear.


----------



## Cinder

Thanks guys!

I have a whole folder of maps I've created over the years, but that's the most artistic. The rest are hastily drawn on paper, or badly computer-made. I don't usually make them _stylish _until people need to see them.

I looked through the pages of the thread - some put me to shame!


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

It doesn't really matter if they're well developed or not, I'd love to see more!


----------



## Kenny_K75

*Pen and ink*

I just drew mine out the old way with pen and ink.... will post to the thread soon but only completed it yesterday...


----------



## Kenny_K75

Ophiucha said:


> So this happened... I was messing with difference clouds. No further explanation.



Really like that map....


----------



## ellianbaker

It's a work-in-progress, but here is my map of Aracea. Hopefully this link will work. I haven't used Flickr before, believe it or not.

Aracea_Basic | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

I quite like that. It's very straight forward. Not sure about the colour of the sea, but I guess that doesn't matter too much.

I've started work on yet another map. I've only posted one so far, but that was the third version, and it changes drastically each time.


----------



## ellianbaker

Thanks! I toyed with various colors for the sea/oceans, but finally settled on something that didn't drown out (no pun intended) the rest of the map. Mapmaking in and of itself can be highly addictive.


----------



## Leif GS Notae

*Lyonhead Bay, Nimeria on the world of Niris *
_(Link provided since my map was far too large for the post)_

This is the section of my world taking place in one of my series that I write for my blog. I used Photoshop using instructions I found over at Cartographer's Guild. I have no cities denoted on the map, my ability for that level of detail on this map would just ruin it. However, that website has some amazing tutorials as well as maps the members made for viewing and inspiration.


----------



## Telcontar

Beautiful map, Leif. I've run across the Cartographer's guild, but didn't look around much. I wonder if I can adapt some of their tutorials to GIMP and improve on my efforts.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

@Leif GS Notae: Nice work. I especially like the trees.

@Telcontar: I imagine you can adapt the tutorials, yeah. Some options will likely be in a different place, but I'm sure you can achieve something similar.

I ought to revisit the Cartographers Guild before I start working on my next map.


----------



## myrddin173

@Telcontar Actually there are a number of tutorials already made for Gimp so you won't have to do through to much trouble.


----------



## Leif GS Notae

Telcontar said:


> Beautiful map, Leif. I've run across the Cartographer's guild, but didn't look around much. I wonder if I can adapt some of their tutorials to GIMP and improve on my efforts.



They have plenty of GIMP tuts there, I am sure you could find something worthwhile. Thanks for the compliment, I see areas that can be improved, but it is far better than my first one... heh


----------



## Leif GS Notae

Johnny Cosmo said:


> @Leif GS Notae: Nice work. I especially like the trees.



Thank you very much Johnny, I struggled with those trees for a while. I am glad they came out the way they did. That was about 4-5 hours of work, but well worth it


----------



## Elder the Dwarf

I hate this thread haha.  I am so jealous of all you damn artistic people!


----------



## Telcontar

Word. I've improved remarkably at sketching the beginnings of a map - at least, the coastlines. But beyond that I'm still pretty hopeless. GIMP helps cover up some of the lack, but if I ever get a book publisher I'll have to hire a map artist.


----------



## RainbowGirl

I don't have much artistic talent in this field but I still don't know if I would be able to pass it on to someone else. It would be good if I did I'm sure, I just don't know that I could handle it.


----------



## Elishimar

I did some more work on my world map. Some old fashioned pencil and pen on paper.


----------



## Kenny_K75

*Nice map...*



Elishimar said:


> I did some more work on my world map. Some old fashioned pencil and pen on paper.



Really nice work..... Love the way the mountain range in the east turns into islands when it reaches the sea....


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

> Love the way the mountain range in the east turns into islands when it reaches the sea....



I agree. Nice work Elishimar.


----------



## Elishimar

Thanks guys! also I need more practice, so if anyone wants help, I can take there rough drafts and make the same style of map if they want. let me know :]


----------



## myrddin173

Here is a map I did for my island in the Mythic Archipelago.  I used some tutorials from the Cartographer's Guild.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

It's bare, but nice. I know it will likely tell me in a tutorial over at the Cartographer's Guild, but any chance you could run through how you did the trees?


----------



## myrddin173

Yah, its just a start but stuff will be filled in eventually.  I couldn't hope to explain how I did it, I kept having to flip between GIMP and the internet multiple times for each step...

Here is the tutorial for the map proper, and here is the one for the trees.


----------



## Wormtongue

I really need to update my map.  It's a hand-drawn piece of paper that I've carted around for nearly twenty years now.


----------



## zizban

Here is a map I did for my sword and sorcery NaNoWriMo novel.





Uploaded with ImageShack.us


----------



## Jabrosky

The continent of Noah crosses three climatic zones: the north is  temperate, the middle is arid desert, and the south is tropical. Each of  these regions is considered a subcontinent and has been given its own  name: the north is Japheth, the middle is Shem, and the south is Kam.  White areas with dots are desert, lightly shaded areas with faint  streaks are grasslands, and darkly shaded areas are forested.

Noah's  human populations are sorted into three races corresponding to the  three climatic zones. The Japhethites are white, the Shemites are  olive-skinned, and the Kamites are black. The people in all three races  live in mostly tribal Copper to Early Bronze Age societies, with no  extensive empires and large cities being scarce. As a general rule,  Japhethite and Shemite cultures tend to be patriarchal whereas Kamites  favor matriarchies in which political and spiritual responsibilities are  traditionally vested in women rather than men.


----------



## cariadhe

I noticed the references to Celtic or Nordic or whatever-it-is mythology and the Bible  Japheth and Sheba and Ishmael, oh my! I know, it's corny. I'm tired.


----------



## zizban

Very very cool map!


----------



## Jabrosky

zizban said:


> Very very cool map!



Thank you!


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

Here's my latest map. It's not finished yet; I know there's not many labels, the ones that exist are hard to read as they've not been placed properly, the 'mountain' texture is a bit rubbish, and the trees aren't exactly great. Still, I like the style (it reminds me of the in-game Oblivion map). Oh, and it's been resized from 1000x1000 to 700x700 so it fits the post window.

*Edit:* Image deleted in this post because I'd posted about a million versions. So scroll down...


----------



## Elder the Dwarf

Wow, that's really awesome Johnny!  I really don't mind the trees, although I will admit the mountains aren't quite defined enough.  They are a little hard to recognize without a close inspection.  Still, great map!


----------



## Telcontar

Nice map, but yeah - that mountain texture blows.  Looks like snake skin. Water looks good, especially the divide between coastal and deep ocean.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

Ha, either snakeskin or as if I've spilt water over a few bits of the map. I might end up going for drawn representations of mountains, like my previous map (way back in this thread). My only issue with the trees is that they don't seem to match the 'hand-drawn' style that well, otherwise I think they're okay. Here's an update... are the mountains any better?

*Edit:* I've been tinkering all night, so I thought I append my progress. Fantasy cartography is addictive. I've altered the size of the tree patterns, deleted the borders so that it's clearly open sea beyond, started to tweak the labels (but not by much), altered some of the colours, added a grid (1 square = 50 miles), and deleted the line border so that the water and land come together in a tidier fashion (I also like the way the lakes and the islands to the west look without borders... very natural I think).


----------



## Centerfield97

I love the territory of "The North" and "The Old North."

Very cool map Cosmo


----------



## Telcontar

Whoops, seems I mistook the forest for the mountains! Nevermind the snakeskin comment...

New texture does look better, but I'd suggest going with the typical ^^^ type mountains. They're time-honored and they work just fine.


----------



## Reaver

Nice map. I wish I had a tenth of the artisitic skill I've seen in this thread.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

I didn't really want to do that. I tried it on my last map (a few pages back), but I'm hopeless at making it look natural. Perhaps I'll mess around with something like that another time, but not yet. I do have an update on this one though. Anyone got any opinions on the mountains? Also, any suggestions would be welcome...

Mountains much improved, I think. They look semi-realistic, whilst still retaining a sort of painted look.
Some text has been placed and highlighted better, but the labelling is still no where near finished.
I thought I'd create a coloured regions layer. It won't be on my final map. It's more for personal reference (but I thought I'd better mix things up a bit here...)
Some other small tweaks that are hardly noticable, but let me rest easy...







Sorry guys! I seem to be abusing this thread as my own map-making journal. Perhaps other people should join in and walkthrough their process in the thread. I'm sure we could all learn a lot.


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne

My process is, I can't draw for shit and don't really want to learn. I'll hire somebody to make my map the same as I'd hire someone to make the cover art. 

Say, Johnny, you ever consider taking a commission? If my world map looked half that good it'd be plenty good for me


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

I'm still only really a beginner, but I'd be happy to help other users out if I can. It'd have to be in my own time of course... I'm pretty slow at it.

I'm sure there are others far more capable on these forums that might like to help out too. Perhaps it is something we can explore if a cartography forum gets going.


----------



## Telcontar

Ah, yep, that's done it Johnny. Those mountains look good. Now all that this map is missing is little stylized sea monsters haunting the deep part of the ocean...


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

> Now all that this map is missing is little stylized sea monsters haunting the deep part of the ocean...



That's if my world includes sea monsters, of course.  And I've not actually got much space to draw any bits of art on the map... when all the names are on their it's going to be a packed.


----------



## Telcontar

Bah. I'm talking about the time honored tradition of fearing the edges of the map - OUR historic maps had such sea monsters, and would you say our world includes sea monsters? Perhaps you could, but certainly none that troubled actual travelers...


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

Actually, you do have a point, considering the style. I was originally thinking of my map as just a personal reference, but I guess it looks more like an in-world map now. There are very dangerous seas too, come to think of it. I might just do that if I can find the space.


----------



## Jabrosky

I modified my story-in-progress (which is now titled _Godstone_) and so have modified its world. The place names you see on here are temporary placeholders until I can think up more creative names, but they should give you an idea of each culture's real-world inspiration:






If someone could make a prettier version of this map or suggest some creative names for each of the regions, I would greatly appreciate it.


----------



## W.k. Trail

I've done a map or two in my time, usually in Paint Shop Pro (I've been using PSP 9 for about five years because I'm allergic to progress.)

You can see it here, if you like: The world of Mora’s Story | The Book of Jarrah


----------



## Cinder

That's an awesome map ^

I loved reading about the land too.


----------



## OrionDarkwood

Johnny Cosmo said:


> I'm just looking to see how others are getting along with mapping their worlds. It's one of my favourite aspects of world-building, and I've been making decent progress with my own map (though I don't feel it's ready to show yet). So, if you have a map, why not let us see your hard work?



I have a rough map, however my major issue is I have good visual images of what places are suppose to look like but my drawing skills suck. I guess I could use map making software but that would be for a general image.


----------



## Giant

I have recently started using Fractal Mapper V8.0. They have a trial version that is easy to use and free. I like it so far and it has really helped me visualize my world and cities. Here are two examples they give on their website of the kind of maps that you can create. Give it a shot if you are struggling with mapping your worlds.

http://www.nbos.com/products/mapper/screenshots/fm8-sample-nazrain.jpg

http://www.nbos.com/products/mapper/screenshots/fm8-TiPander.gif


----------



## Telcontar

That first one especially is pretty nice. Both of those are products of this Fractal Mapper program?


----------



## Giant

Yes, both of those images are screen shots of the Fractal Mapper v8.0. I am still working to make mine look nearly that good. But the program is easy to use, and they have a trial version that is free to download. It has all of the same features as the pay version, only you can't save your maps. (But you can take screen shots of them which is cool for your own reference.) Here is the link to the trial version if you want to  give it a whirl.

Trial Versions


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

@W.K.Trail: I really like that.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

I get the sense that style and character is lost in cartography-specific software, although I do understand that some of us create maps to function. I've considered cartography software, but it doesn't look like you get much freedom to design.

Moving on, here is my latest offering. It's similar to my last one, but I've pushed the watercolour look a bit more. I'm happier with this style of forest, and I've worked on developing the mountain technique a little. I'm not as happy with the paper though... it just doesn't look as good. Perhaps I'll go back and steal the settings from my previous map. Again, it's no where near finished; the labelling isn't finished, most of the labels that are there are placeholders, and I'm trying to think of a way to present hills.








Incase anybody is wondering where this fits in to my world - it's a small land mass (probably around half to two thirds the size of England) that was south of the land mass in my last map, before it sank and took with it the old Kingdom of Gullydia (from where most of my dominant races originated).

I'd love some feedback...


----------



## myrddin173

Johnny Cosmo said:


> probably around half to two thirds the size of England



Do you mean the country of England or the island of Great Britain?  Anyways it looks really nice!


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

> Do you mean the country of England or the island of Great Britain? Anyways it looks really nice!



Thanks, and England (although I've not completely decided on the scale of all my landmasses yet, so it might get bigger). I have a question - do you think that the colours are a bit dull or faded looking? It just doesn't quite look bold enough to me, but that might be because I've been staring for a few hours whilst working on it.

*Edit: *In fact, I've already changed my mind, and now it is about the full size of England.


----------



## Telcontar

Johnny, if you have the time and inclination I'd very much like to see how you make these maps. Perhaps you could do some sort of tutorial? Perhaps it has been asked before in the thread, but I'd like to see how you get this look.


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

I'm not sure I'm qualified to be teaching others. There are probably easier ways to do a lot of what I do, and a lot of my techniques have been picked up from other tutorials (albeit altered and adapted to fit my needs). Perhaps when I develop my own style a bit more, I'll upload a tutorial to my portfolio.

Until then though, feedback would really speed up the learning process for me.


----------



## Shasjas

See below.


----------



## Black Dragon

Shasjas said:


> attachmentid=40962&d=1325625793Erdriel



Hey Shasjas,  

We're unable to view your map, as only members of the cartographer's guild can see it.  

If you like, you can upload it to our brand new Map Gallery, and then place it in this thread.  

Once you upload it there, you can use the Direct Link URL (which will be  to the uploaded image's right, under "Additional Info") to place the  image directly into this thread so that we can all see it. 

 If you place the Direct Link URL within IMG tags, it will be easy to display it here.  The usage would be:



		Code:
	

[img]direct url to image[/img]


So for example, the following code   



		Code:
	

[NOPARSE][IMG]http://mythicscribes.com/gallery/data/513/pappenheimer.jpg[/IMG][/NOPARSE]


would result in this:







You can visit the gallery here:

Fantasy Image Gallery - - Mythic Scribes


----------



## Johnny Cosmo

@Shasjas: Really nice work! Any chance of a different link for the benefit of non-Cartography Guild members? I am a member, but I'm not sure how many other users here are.

*Edit:* Beaten to it by Black Dragon...


----------



## myrddin173

Shasja, Nice map.  (I knew signing up for Cartographer's Guild would be handy)


----------



## Shasjas

Oh sorry about that, I always forget that you have to sign up to see images on that site.
I tried uploading using the gallery here but my picture said it was uploaded and then when I went to my pictures it wasn't their, so i uploaded it to flickr which should work.


Erdriel


----------



## mrmister

I like that you've got the climate figured out.


----------



## ascanius

So I dug this thread up for the simple goal of wanting to know what other think of my map.  however i discovered that it was much to large to be uploaded to the gallery so I had to cut it into fourths, flatten it, and in general dilute what I have done just to get it to fit on the other website.  Originally the map is something like a 18.7MB  file at 4800x3600 pixles, I was able to zoom in really close and add little details and the like  Sadly the zoom level is only at like fifty percent even when it says 100 so a lot of the detail is lost.  But any input is appreciated.  So they are labeled by location, NW, NE SW,SE.  the Password is:  abcdefg12345  and they are at Login to a private Photobucket.com album
Thnx.


----------



## Jabrosky

^ It's quite beautiful, especially the mountains.


----------



## kadenaz

My map is in my link, here in my signature


----------



## myrddin173

@ascanius  Are those hand-drawn?  They look fantastic!


----------



## Ghost

Yeah, I love the mountains. I'd like to see the pictures joined up. Maybe you could resize them for a smaller map and save it as a separate file just so people could get an idea of what it all looks like as one piece?

Good job, ascanius


----------



## ascanius

Ok I scaled the image to provide a full view of all four regions PW abcdefg12345  at Login to a private Photobucket.com album

And I sort of hand drew the mountains.  Using GIMP I created 10 mountains by hand, or mouse if you will, then saved them together as an animated brush.  There are actually two types of mountains large and small, along with the hills, and all the trees.  I did the same thing will all of them and made them animated brushes.


----------



## Shockley

Obviously this is still a work in progress, but this is the core continent on which my story will take place (sadly, most of it will happen in the top left corner, where you have the peninsula and the pseudo-isthmus). I've done way more than my original region, and that's how I like my creative process to function.


----------



## Telcontar

Very detailed coastline. How was this created? 

Of course, it's also missing some other bits I usually like to look at... mountains and such. No doubt you have an idea of where those are even though they aren't on the map.


----------



## Shockley

I use MS Paint.


----------



## Telcontar

Hah! Certainly not the answer I expected. The coasts look almost fractally generated - that must have taken some time.


----------



## Shockley

Probably five hours in total. 

It's a simple method I use: I make as big an image as possible (it's not clear because Photobucket automatically resizes, but the original of that is several times larger than my computer screen) and then zoom in as close as I can. I take about a minute to draw a winding line down the the bit I've zoomed in on, fashion lakes or islands if so desired, and then scroll down to the next piece.

 When I zoom out, it has a very natural look. Up close, there are a lot of straight lines, unintentional curves, etc. but that reminds me of how stuff actually looks.


----------



## Jabrosky

I drew this in MS Paint for a story I'm plotting:







The story centers around a conflict between the kingdoms of Shinar and Cush. Shinar has a Mesopotamian flavor whereas Cush, as its name may suggest, is Nubian in style. Among the myriad cultural differences between these two civilizations, perhaps the most fundamental is religious: the Shinarim worship the Moon God whereas the Cushau favor a Sun Goddess.

In case it isn't intuitive, brown areas are mountains, dark red lines are trade routes, black dots are settlements and stars are capitals.


----------



## Mindfire

Nicely done Jabrosky. Familiar, yet different. Like our North Africa in an alternate universe. You might want to give Shinar slightly less familiar names though. Most of them are just unfamiliar enough to the general public to be fine, but "Ishmael" might be a tad too familiar. But on the other hand, I think it's cool where you pulled all the names from. I recognize most of the Northern ones.


----------



## Mindfire

Here's my map. 





Click Image for Higher Resolution.​

My mountains aren't that good and my forest/trees need work, but I think my rivers and costlines are decent. You'll notice two landmasses on the left that have no names or geological features. I haven't really decided what to do with them or what to put on them yet. I just put them there to take up space make the map feel more "complete". Without them it just looked to fake and square-ish. Also, that dashed line in the sea there is a the border between Beorgia and Elyssia. I didn't want people to think that those lands across the bridge were also part of Beorgia just because they were in the north. 

So what do you guys think of it? I really want to get someone who's a better artist/cartographer to remake it for me, but I don't have the money to pay for a professional. For the present my genius is limited by my art skills.


----------



## Jabrosky

Sorry, Mindfire, but I'm getting an 403 error message when I click on your link. Could you please fix it or host the map on another website?


----------



## Mindfire

Jabrosky said:


> Sorry, Mindfire, but I'm getting an 403 error message when I click on your link. Could you please fix it or host the map on another website?



Fixed now. Quoted here for your convenience:



Mindfire said:


> Here's my map.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click Image for Higher Resolution.​
> 
> My mountains aren't that good and my forest/trees need work, but I think my rivers and costlines are decent. You'll notice two landmasses on the left that have no names or geological features. I haven't really decided what to do with them or what to put on them yet. I just put them there to take up space make the map feel more "complete". Without them it just looked to fake and square-ish. Also, that dashed line in the sea there is a the border between Beorgia and Elyssia. I didn't want people to think that those lands across the bridge were also part of Beorgia just because they were in the north.
> 
> So what do you guys think of it? I really want to get someone who's a better artist/cartographer to remake it for me, but I don't have the money to pay for a professional. For the present my genius is limited by my art skills.


----------



## Mindfire

I'm looking for some suggestions about what to do with those two mini-continents loitering over there. Originally I was going to have a whole different continent with a parallel story running on it, but now I'm thinking I might just use those two. Do you think that, given the mountain ranges being where the are, it's plausible enough that any cultures on those two land masses would have little or no interaction with the other three? Also, I think that one in the lower left is going to start out as a penal colony, kinda like Australia did.


----------



## Jabrosky

I do have a problem with the river system in Elyssia. Rivers may join but they don't split like that except at deltas.


----------



## ascanius

Um Jabrosky is right rivers will take the path of least resistance and so rarely split.  They can split like that on occasion such as when the flow of water exceeds the path of least resistance, such as a flood.  Then the river can split, but it is not that common.  also as to your question about the two landmasses being isolated.  I think the northern one it is plausable due to the mountains in the northern portion.  However south in Mavaria I would say that it is unlikely unless the distance is much to great or they never discovered ship building.  Hey Do you want to make a digital version of the map?


----------



## Mindfire

Jabrosky said:


> I do have a problem with the river system in Elyssia. Rivers may join but they don't split like that except at deltas.



That's because it *is* a delta. A man-made delta. 

I traced the Nile Delta to use as a model. The river's source is farther south, into the forest. The landscape is kinda like a bowl. High elevations in the north and far south, low elevations in the middle. But the true explanation for the rivers branching out like that is that they all used to be one river, but then the Elyssians, the most industrialized of my nations, took on a huge irrigation project and over the course of decades they forced the one river to branch into four, then added more branches onto those until they reached the point you see on the map. Those rivers also help to define the borders of each count's respective jurisdiction.


----------



## Mindfire

ascanius said:


> Um Jabrosky is right rivers will take the path of least resistance and so rarely split.  They can split like that on occasion such as when the flow of water exceeds the path of least resistance, such as a flood.  Then the river can split, but it is not that common.  also as to your question about the two landmasses being isolated.  I think the northern one it is plausable due to the mountains in the northern portion.  However south in Mavaria I would say that it is unlikely unless the distance is much to great or they never discovered ship building.  Hey Do you want to make a digital version of the map?



Thanks ascanius! And actually the Mavarians have discovered shipbuilding, but they pretty much keep to themselves. The seas are dominated by the Beorgians. And I'd love to make a digital version, but I simply don't have the required skills.

And I should probably say that this map is not to scale.


----------



## Shockley

Showing off my map inspired me to finish laying out the political regions. I'll be the first to admit that my map is far larger than my story warrants - any action I relate will probably occur in Argantar, though with the possibility that it will spread into Nastrund or (and this is something I think I'd enjoy writing) into the regions I labeled as the Wastes and Old Abenar. Most of these areas I will never write about, and I included them for a few reasons:

1. I wanted to have a proper sense of Argantar when I write my story. I tend to show the Argantarians as being particularly powerful, which is not how I envisioned them - the map helps me keep them in their respective place as a relatively small country.

2. If necessary, I have nearby countries pre-named.

3. This is more of a personal issue: The first world I ever created in my head was Imar, and I'm willing to admit that Imar is just an anagram for Mari, one of the ancient Sumerian cities. The second world I created was Eskandria, which is distinctly similar to medieval Arabian culture. So, by making this map, I have now codified all but one of my fantasy worlds into one plane of existence. That's something I'm proud of.


----------



## Mindfire

That's a BIG map.


----------



## Telcontar

Shockley said:


> ... and I'm willing to admit that Imar is just an anagram for Mari



Whatever works. Plenty of names in fantasy and Scifi are anagrams or otherwise allusions to real-world things. After a while it just because hard to think up new names for everything. It doesn't really matter. Once you put enough of your own invention behind the name, it becomes a symbol for what _you_ created, not what it relates to in the real world.



			
				Shockley said:
			
		

> So, by making this map, I have now codified all but one of my fantasy worlds into one plane of existence. That's something I'm proud of.



Neat.  That's something I'll never be able to do...

I like the political divisions, they definitely help bring the map to life.


----------



## Shockley

Thank you. I appreciate the comments.


----------



## Mindfire

That must have taken hours Shockley. I salute you.


----------



## Saigonnus

My world of Aern for the main Work in Progress I have been working on. I had to recreate it since a tragic series of events caused it to be deleted from my computer. Took the better part of 36 hours to get it where I wanted it.


----------



## zizban

These maps are insanely awesome. I need to post my pitiful one.


----------



## ascanius

Would anyone be interested in Tutorial about using GIMP to create maps?  I would only cover the things I have done in my map, like how I made the mountains and everything else.  But the only problem is I don't know How much time I would have to devote to this, I still have classes and all that but if enough people are interested I may give it some thought and put some time aside.


----------



## Mindfire

ascanius said:


> Would anyone be interested in Tutorial about using GIMP to create maps?  I would only cover the things I have done in my map, like how I made the mountains and everything else.  But the only problem is I don't know How much time I would have to devote to this, I still have classes and all that but if enough people are interested I may give it some thought and put some time aside.



Interest piqued.


----------



## OGone

Here's a map I made for a land I'm creating, the land itself and map are both in their early stages.

The map is not even closed to being finished yet. I still need to add trees, mountain lines, rivers and of course the place names but here it is in its most basic stage:







The scale at the bottom is undecided at present but I'm thinking that every segment represents 6-7 miles (so it is a very small world). None of the islands, regions, cities or races have been named yet, the letters are purely there for personal reference but I may explain them in the showcase section. 

The black line through the centre represents the equatorial line, I need to move it down a little.

The colours are just there as reference and in no way represent the landscape at present.

EDIT: Here's a better version, more of an overhead view than a map. I am going to work on the actual map now as I still have to add rivers, mountains and stuff but this is the basis I am working from:







But yeah this is very, very, very simple at the moment. I am thinking of magnifying each tiny segment and mapping it out much more accurately then piecing them together, this is just a template for me to work from so I know the general shape of my world. I am pretty bad at Photoshop too so this was good practice.


----------



## Jabrosky

^ I like the blending effect in the second map!






Created in Campaign Cartographer.

The indigenous peoples of Lemurya once fought each other  chronically, ritualistically consuming their enemies' flesh, but the  chieftain Jarrah of Asmat brought this era of cannibalistic warfare to  an end by unifying the tribes into one nation-state. Nonetheless, old  tribal grudges do not die easily, so this peace is tentative at best and  dependent on the centralized government's power. The Cushites from  across the ocean have colonized the island's northern coastline to  exploit its tropical resources, but they hesitate to penetrate deeper  for fear of arousing the Lemuryans' wrath...

Although the  Lemuryan city symbols may look Asian, my Lemuryan culture actually has a  New Guinean inspiration. In fact the cities' names are taken from real  New Guinean tribal societies. It's high time that someone used New  Guineans for fantasy worldbuilding.


----------



## Jabrosky

Another rendition of Cush, this time in Campaign Cartographer:


----------



## Jabrosky

Another Campaign Cartographer map for my conworld...






The Heladoan city-states may be embroiled in a state of perpetual  war with one another, but they all share a common language, a common  culture, and a commonly notorious affinity for piracy. When not  skirmishing rival city-states, Heladoan raiders may prowl far and wide  across the oceans in search of hapless merchants and coastal settlements  to plunder.

The Heladoans are supposed to have a Mediterranean  cultural flavor, with the Greek, Latin, and Spanish civilizations being  particularly influential.


----------



## Jabrosky

Another Campaign Cartographer fantasy map. This program can be really fun to use.

The  Coppermane Alliance, so named for its population of red-haired white  people, is a confederation of democratically run city-states linked by a  central council in Greathall. The Coppermanes are generally peaceful,  but they are fiercely patriotic and will fight to the death to defend  their Alliance.

The Coppermanes' culture is roughly based on  Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic peoples of northern Europe. This gave me  the fun opportunity to use descriptive English names for the towns and  geographic regions. If you want to know the Coppermane area's geographic  context, it's north of the Heladoan Archipelago, which in turn is north  of Cush.


----------



## Mindfire

Jabrosky said:


> Another Campaign Cartographer fantasy map. This program can be really fun to use.
> 
> The  Coppermane Alliance, so named for its population of red-haired white  people, is a confederation of democratically run city-states linked by a  central council in Greathall. The Coppermanes are generally peaceful,  but they are fiercely patriotic and will fight to the death to defend  their Alliance.
> 
> The Coppermanes' culture is roughly based on  Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic peoples of northern Europe. This gave me  the fun opportunity to use descriptive English names for the towns and  geographic regions. If you want to know the Coppermane area's geographic  context, it's north of the Heladoan Archipelago, which in turn is north  of Cush.




That's pretty cool Jabrosky. I like your CC maps. Is the program user-friendly at all? I was thinking about getting CC, but I was put off by the Fractal Terrains 3 demo from the same company because it seemed so difficult to use. Is Campaign Cartographer easier to use than FT3? And does it allow you to easily reproduce hand drawn maps or trace over existing pictures?

Also, are you ever going to put all these places on one map so we can see where they are in relation to each other?


----------



## Jabrosky

Mindfire said:


> That's pretty cool Jabrosky. I like your CC maps. Is the program user-friendly at all? I was thinking about getting CC, but I was put off by the Fractal Terrains 3 demo from the same company because it seemed so difficult to use. Is Campaign Cartographer easier to use than FT3? And does it allow you to easily reproduce hand drawn maps or trace over existing pictures?
> 
> Also, are you ever going to put all these places on one map so we can see where they are in relation to each other?



Yes, the program is very user-friendly, although I've never tried FT3. I think you can trace over existing pictures (the instructions are in the manual) but I don't know about reproducing hand-drawn maps.

I'm actually reluctant to put all these places on one world map. I want to keep part of the world a mystery.


----------



## Mindfire

Here's the updated, more complete version of my map. 





Click Image for Higher Resolution.​http://goo.gl/QADgs

I've filled in the western reaches of my realm now.


----------



## Ophiucha

My current, tentative map of #soundworld. I will probably change it again within a week, but I think I'm getting closer to what I want the world to look like with each try, so I'll consider it a small victory. Also, I hate oceans. They never look good and I can't find a good shade of blue to use.


----------



## Jabrosky

^ I like that, although the mountains could use some more definition.


----------



## Mindfire

How'd you make that?


----------



## Ophiucha

@Jab, Mountains are tough. >.< On the one hand, I don't want them to be white-capped and really strange looking against the gradient, but on the other hand, they _do_ kind of just look like hills right now. I'll work on it.

@Mindfire, I use Photoshop. The landmasses are generated randomly, at first, using 'clouds', but I tweak them to look more like the continents and islands I wanted. The mountains and sea depths are created with more clouds, just used as a texture and edited out when appropriate (I removed the mountains from the desert, for instance). The colour is just a gradient over the whole thing, from a dark green to a pale green to a sand colour. The rest is just tweaking with the layer styles - emboss, glow, that sort of thing. Aside from choosing colours and having a steady hand while touching things up, it required no real artistic talent.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> @Jab, Mountains are tough. >.< On the one hand, I don't want them to be white-capped and really strange looking against the gradient, but on the other hand, they _do_ kind of just look like hills right now. I'll work on it.
> 
> @Mindfire, I use Photoshop. The landmasses are generated randomly, at first, using 'clouds', but I tweak them to look more like the continents and islands I wanted. The mountains and sea depths are created with more clouds, just used as a texture and edited out when appropriate (I removed the mountains from the desert, for instance). The colour is just a gradient over the whole thing, from a dark green to a pale green to a sand colour. The rest is just tweaking with the layer styles - emboss, glow, that sort of thing. Aside from choosing colours and having a steady hand while touching things up, it required no real artistic talent.



How long did it take?


----------



## Ophiucha

About an hour, give or take.


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## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> About an hour, give or take.



...You don't take requests, do you?


----------



## Ophiucha

Haha, I'm _really _not skilled in any way, but if you give me a reference I can give it a try.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> Haha, I'm _really _not skilled in any way, but if you give me a reference I can give it a try.



Reference! 



Mindfire said:


> Here's the updated, more complete version of my map.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click Image for Higher Resolution.​http://goo.gl/QADgs



Ask if you have questions.


----------



## Ophiucha

http://i40.tinypic.com/34xj0a1.png

This is probably the worst map I have ever created. orz


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## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> This is probably the worst map I have ever created. orz



Lol. It's not that bad. It's not quite close enough to be useable, but it's still cool lookin. Thanks!


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## Ophiucha

Haha, didn't think it would be, but it was fun working with a reference for once. I usually just have an image in my head and kinda let my clumsy hand deal with the details. 

Working on one for myself now, and I'm bemoaning my need for an archipelago. So many little islands...


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> Haha, didn't think it would be, but it was fun working with a reference for once. I usually just have an image in my head and kinda let my clumsy hand deal with the details.
> 
> Working on one for myself now, and I'm bemoaning my need for an archipelago. So many little islands...



Yeah I bet those are a pain to draw. lol


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## Telcontar

Looks nice. I think it's plenty useful if you're working with macro politics or long travel... only thing that caught my eye in a bad way is the rivers. They stretch from ocean to ocean... rivers don't do that.  You've got some that look good on the small continent, though.


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## Mindfire

Telcontar said:


> Looks nice. I think it's plenty useful if you're working with macro politics or long travel... only thing that caught my eye in a bad way is the rivers. They stretch from ocean to ocean... rivers don't do that.  You've got some that look good on the small continent, though.



Are you referring to my map or hers? Because I don't have any rivers that stretch from one sea to another. Those are meant to be mountain springs and glacial melting sources.


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## Telcontar

Ah, sorry. Opiucha's - forgot to specify.


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## Ophiucha

Yeah, I wouldn't have drawn the rivers like that, but the way I do topography on my Photoshop maps, it's a bit harder to show where the source of a river is. (Also, I couldn't figure out what the source of the lower cluster of rivers was from Mindfire's map, so I just drew it ambiguously southbound.) In my personal maps, my rivers are just these puny little forking things that connect the mountains to the nearest coast and I leave it at that. :/ I can never be bothered with long rivers. orz


----------



## Hans

A map of my current WIP: http://5sl.org/~bretscher/bilder/Athalis.png (The map is also very WIP.)
Contours are at -0-100-200-500-1000+
Mountains go up to 3500m, but above 1km everything is permafrost and glacier so no need to go into more detail there.
The island is slightly larger than New Guinea but has only about 8E5 inhabitants, most of them living south of the southern mountains.
The inner of the island is uninhabitable due to high volcanic activity, lots of roaming ghosts and spirits and maybe one or another daemon.


----------



## zizban

This is a very (very) rough draft of the map for my forthcoming novel, _Ouroboros_. It's hard to read because the pencil drawing has faded a bit and it's not in great shape. I am working on a better map right now.

I drew the map only after finishing the first draft of the novel. All the action takes place in just two cities so that wasn't an issue, however, remembering the names I used turned out to be. The map is a little wrong.

The Prakani Empire takes up most of what you see on the map, with uncontrolled area on the edges and the Seventeen Kingdoms to the east and south. There is no scale because I haven't figured out one and almost everyone travels by magic anyway so I didn't bother. I figure it's about four times the size of Scandinavia.

Almost all the interior features are named after places in India. No idea why. They just sounded exotic.


----------



## cliche

I havent continued on developing this story in a while so might end up putting it to one side and starting another story but here is my map that i havent done much on...
Map by ~fortifiedsoul on deviantART


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## Jabrosky

I used Copic markers for this and added the labels in GIMP. The world's major gimmick is that its people are at a Mesolithic stage of technological development, which is to say they've settled down in permanent villages but haven't invented agriculture yet. The geography was heavily influenced by Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age:


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## zizban

Traced onto graph paper and added geography. Next to add names then cities and regions.


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## Hans

Is that a salt lake where the northwestern river flows in? I see no rivers flowing out if it, so it might be.
That lake is very round. Maybe a caldera? Or an impact crater at that size?
At what scale is the map?


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## zizban

It's probably a salt lake. I haven't really thought much about. Like I said above, most of the action takes place in just two cities on the coast so the interior wasn't a high priority. The lake is actually round for a reason like you suspect. I was thinking some cataclysm in the early history of the Prakani Empire created it.

The scale (for now) is one square equals forty miles, which makes the Empire about the same size north to south as Norway. I might go larger. I haven't decided yet.


----------



## Catherine

Here's mine (well part of mine). This is just the Upper Realms - home to the Elemental races. I have yet to design all the other locations.


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## zizban

This is a redraw of the original map of the Prakani Empire. I did this to make sure I got all the geographic names correct. The place names are (generally) named after places in India to sound exotic.

The Prakani Empire takes up most of what you see. It does not control any lands beyond the Kithalinthok Mountains, nor the Seventeen Kingdoms. A couple places just off the map are Trondelag (Norway), Amlwch (Ireland) and the tropical Tosh Islands.


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## Devor

Catherine said:


> Here's mine (well part of mine). This is just the Upper Realms - home to the Elemental races. I have yet to design all the other locations.



That's pretty, where did you make that one?


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## Catherine

Devor said:


> That's pretty, where did you make that one?



An old version of Photoshop Elements. Glad you like it


----------



## ascanius

Ok I take my EMT practical exam on Sat, then I am going to attempt to make a GIMP tutorial for map making.  Any advice?


----------



## SeverinR

Marsivea - Mythic Scribes

My small city.


----------



## zizban

This seriously abused map is of Essex, the setting of my epic fantasy. I've been writing it off and on for about five years and I'm about 1/3 done.

Elfs, trolls and dragons are native to the world. Humans aren't. 

In the distant past a Roman legion and a tribe of Anglo-Saxons were battling and were swept into this world. The Romans subjected the Anglo-Saxons, setting up their own little kingdom on a large island off the map to the west of Essex

Eventually the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons were able to escape and invaded Essex, pushing the native elfs into the forests of the north. The humans initially allied with the trolls, who thought the elfs were a waste of good flesh, but the two sides had a falling out and went to war. The humans won the war. For centuries an uneasy peace has existed.

Into this steps my hero.


----------



## Graylorne

*Map of Rhidauna*








This is the kingdom my MC has unknowingly inherited.


----------



## RainbowGirl

Question for you guys, what tutorials would you recommend as being the ones that influences you the most, or that you find the most useful? I in particular would like Photoshop or Gimp specific tutorials, but any are welcome. I've been looking around and there are so many, I just don't know where to begin, or which one would give me the look I'm after.


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## SeverinR

Graylorne said:


> This is the kingdom my MC has unknowingly inherited.




Great map, what did you use to make it?

Anyone know what old photoshop works with windows 7? Is it only the current(expensive) one?
I have found win95 photoshop at goodwill, I'm pretty sure it won't work win7.


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## zizban

I draw mine by hand. I haven't found any program that is as easy to use as hand drawing.


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## RainbowGirl

SeverinR said:


> Anyone know what old photoshop works with windows 7? Is it only the current(expensive) one?
> I have found win95 photoshop at goodwill, I'm pretty sure it won't work win7.



I have Photoshop 5 I believe, and it works great with windows 7. If you discount my computer's crankiness.


----------



## Graylorne

SeverinR said:


> Great map, what did you use to make it?



Apologies; overlooked this post, SeverinR.

I made this with AutoRealm, free gnu mapmaking software. You can use colours and details, too, things I unhappily lack the patience for.


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## SeverinR

I made a map with Autorealm, I thought the icons looked familiar.  

It is great for large area general maps, but was terrible for close in maps like towns or cities at least the one time I tried.
So far, Paint is the best program I found for towns/cities.


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## Graylorne

I've used Autorealm for some years now, only for area maps. It's nice because it is scaled, so that helps me figure out distances and travel times. 

I never even thought of using Paint. I remember an old clumsy version from way back and never looked at it again. I'' give it another try.


----------



## Jabrosky

LINK

A map of Earth's biomes 100,000 years from the  modern era. It's a post-apocalyptic world which has endured another  asteroid-induced mass extinction which wiped out most of the planet's  larger animals. Although humans survived due to their ingenuity, their  civilizations were obliterated, leaving them to start all over again. A  few millennia later, an abnormal fluctuation in the space/time continuum  dropped lifeforms from throughout Earth's prehistory into the  recovering ecosystem, and they have thrived ever since. As a general  rule, the temperate and polar latitudes are dominated by mammals and the  tropical regions by sauropsids (birds and reptiles). 

The major climatic trend in the last 100,000 years has been increasing  global temperatures and precipitation; in other words, Earth has a  warmer and wetter climate than before. The world's jungles and savannas  have expanded into higher latitudes while the equatorial regions have  become overgrown swamps. There are no more permanent ice caps. 

These climate changes have also impacted human evolution, especially the  distribution of different ethnic groups. As one example, the greening  of the Sahara and Middle East has allowed sub-Saharan African people to  migrate northward and dominate these areas, with the olive-skinned  Middle Eastern and North African types being pushed away into southern  Europe. 

I haven't decided on what technological level the world's peoples will be yet, but right now I'm leaning towards Neolithic. 

Map Source: Map: Global Elevation


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## T.Allen.Smith

Jabrosky, 
I have a question about your world that doesn't relate to the map.
If humans survived due to their ingenuity, why do they have to start all over again?


----------



## Jabrosky

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Jabrosky,
> I have a question about your world that doesn't relate to the map.
> If humans survived due to their ingenuity, why do they have to start all over again?



Hmm...that didn't occur to me.


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## Graylorne

First, human civilisation gets destroyed by astroÃ¯d(s). Humans manage to survive, but they haven't much of an infrastructure left, no resources except for the ruins of their cities, loss of knowledge. They won't go back to the neolithic, for that you'd probably need mental degeneration or universal loss of memory. Back to the Middle Ages would seem likely. That means they have a few thousand years to recover, before the second disaster strikes, when flocks of dinosaurs and sabretooth tigers are dropped all over the place.
Perhaps you could find a disaster that combined both happenings? They still go back to the ME, but it would make it somewhat handier.


----------



## Hans

Graylorne said:


> They won't go back to the neolithic, for that you'd probably need mental degeneration or universal loss of memory. Back to the Middle Ages would seem likely.


I doubt the "drop back age" has a historical equivalent on earth. First, lots of survival skills needed in preindustrial times are mainly lost. That starts with large scale agriculture without machines.
On the other hand nearly everyone today has a basic grasp of newtonian mechanics. It is not hard to build, for example, a steam nozzle. This was a nice child play around here with an empty eggshell and a candle. A lot of people will remember (and teach their children) how to create electricity with rotating magnets. And what to do with it.
This can create a strange mix of different ages this world has seen. Of course the societal changes can be severe. I dare not make a prediction where that would go. Do whatever fits the story is the best I can say about that.


----------



## Graylorne

I didn't mean castles and ironclad knights, ofc, but a comparable level. Although going back to some sort of feudality wouldn't be remarcable; that is about the strong protecting te weak in exchange for services, after all. 
Actually, I was thinking of something like Fallout III, but without radiation. Some basic technology will remain, though I personally wouldn't know a thing about steam nozzles and rotating magnets. (As a former boy scout I have some knowledge of survival techniques.) But I agree about the results, it would be a strange, unpredictable mix.

NB. I realise I was talking from a European viewpoint. A very large part of the world has a far slighter grasp on the 'modern amenities'. Left alone, many communities there would fall back on their previous lifestyles. I'd say this goes for the rural areas of the USA as well. But it's all guesswork.


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## Steerpike

Here is a blog with some maps, as well as tips on making maps:

Fantastic Maps | The fantasy maps of Jonathan Roberts


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## ALB2012

the problem with gimp I found is if you set the layer and decide you dont like it its a right pain to fix. I guess if you are actually fairly good at graphic art its fine. I am not

I have used it for a few things and if I was clever enough to learn it its fine. I think the problem I have found is you need at least some degree of being able to draw to use them.


----------



## Veronica

Does anyone know of a terraforming simulation that could be used to create the basics of a map? I'm thinking of something along the lines of the old SimEarth, where the locations of mountains, canyons, and rifts pertain to the evolutionary shift of the planet and it's possible to designate a land/water ratio.


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## Telcontar

As it happens, I know of several. 

Terragen is one such tool (the classic version is free). It usually only generates smaller landmasses, but if you play with it a bit you can get it to make regions that scale up well. As a bonus you can also get pretty pictures out of it.

Or - my personal favorite - you could download Dwarf Fortress. Learning to play this game is hard (though in my estimation, totally worth it). More to the point, though, it has an incredible world generation sequence utilizing fractals, erosion, vulcanism, and biome generation. 

The Dwarf Fortress generator is not hard to use (really it is just the first step of playing the game), but it might seem complicated. If you're interested I'd be glad to show you how to use it well.

Edit: Also - Ahhh, SimEarth nostalgia.


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## Veronica

Will it work for mostly water-covered worlds? As nerdy as it sounds, I'm looking for something to generate underwater topography. Will those programs manage that?


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## Telcontar

Terragen includes "underwater" topography. Actually it just generates a heightmap and then, for rendering, you set the water level yourself.

Dwarf Fortress lets you set a lot of parameters and also includes underwater topography. I'd have to play around with it a bit to see to what extent you can control ratios of land to sea and such. I'll get back to you on that.


----------



## Havoc

Just wanted to share the map I am working on, let me know what you think..


----------



## J. S. Elliot

http://i48.tinypic.com/351it4z.jpg

A new map for my main novel world. The time period is roughly AEW 450ish. Although I still need to incorporate terrain onto it, I'm liking it so far. My medium is MS Paint, which is why it's not very detailed. Any opinions?


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

SeleneHime said:
			
		

> http://i48.tinypic.com/351it4z.jpg
> 
> A new map for my main novel world. The time period is roughly AEW 450ish. Although I still need to incorporate terrain onto it, I'm liking it so far. My medium is MS Paint, which is why it's not very detailed. Any opinions?



Looks like its inspired from Europe. The only thing I don't like is the dog head bit to the top. It just appears to obvious.


----------



## J. S. Elliot

Well, I actually didn't reference any real life maps regarding the SoYverse one. Regarding the 'dog head', though, it was actually supposed to resemble a reptile's to some degree, while still being a bit rough. Is there anything else?


----------



## Lawfire

The large amount of straight-line borders is unconventional. While it happens, borders often run with natural geographical features.


----------



## Ireth

Lawfire took the words right out of my... uh... fingers. XD


----------



## J. S. Elliot

*Nods* I realize. The straight boarders were going to be corrected, but those are mostly placeholders until I do the next stage of the map (terrain) - which I will be working on tomorrow. I suppose I'll update here again then?


----------



## Hans

Lawfire said:


> The large amount of straight-line borders is unconventional.


This is a feature of old coastlines where the waves had a long time to work on them.
Also it could be a in world map without the very exact measure instruments we have today. That means a lot regions are drawn from hearsay. Also a valid method to make a "original" map.


----------



## Veronica

Telcontar said:


> Terragen includes "underwater" topography. Actually it just generates a heightmap and then, for rendering, you set the water level yourself.



That's actually what I'm looking for. With my WIP, the mythology focuses on a time before sea levels rose to where they are when the story begins, so that would be exceptionally helpful. Thanks for the direction!


----------



## Cinder

The first draft of my current world. This is quite different to the current revision of the world, so I don't mind showing it in advance. Like the other map I uploaded a few months back, the drawing was done by a friend, but the world is all mine.

The labelling was very rushed, just to give myself a clear idea of where everything is/was.







I think I might upload some of the cities I made on a trial of City Designer 3 later......


----------



## Jabrosky

^ Beautifully drawn!


----------



## Helleaven

There are some errors which needs to be corrected, but this is the map of the country, in which the first volume of my series takes place.


----------



## letsgoheat

Map for a novel I'm making. Will be changing most of the names (for obvious reasons, I just slapped some names together to have a work in progress)


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne

letsgoheat said:


> Map for a novel I'm making. Will be changing most of the names (for obvious reasons, I just slapped some names together to have a work in progress)



That's very nice! What did you use to create that?


----------



## letsgoheat

Me and Chashio from the Cartographers guild worked on it. We used a tablet and photoshop. You can see the other maps she's made from her site here Kaitlin Gray Fine Art


----------



## Lawfire

Very crisp and clean! I like it.


----------



## Jabrosky

Map of Earth's major superpowers in an alternate timeline


----------



## letsgoheat

Lawfire said:


> Very crisp and clean! I like it.



Thanks 8) I'm working on the Northern section sketches right now, map will be done in a few weeks perhaps


----------



## Anders Ã„mting

What the heck. Here's the map I made for Esper Shift, an RPG I'm running:








Not the entire map, though - the continent has three other regions and the map will expand as the players discover more of it.


----------



## Mindfire

Update! This is map version, what? Am I at 6.0 by now? Whatever. Anyway, this one actually has the whole earth, not just the northern 3/4s of it. It's not actually on parchment btw, that's a crude pixlr effect. lol


----------



## Telcontar

I've been studying this tutorial from the Cartographers Guild for a couple days now, and today I finally got the chance to try it out (it required downloading some plugins for GIMP before I could mimic some of the functions this guy uses). 

The tutorial taught me a ton. I made some mistakes going through it, and ended up with a map that has much less detail and where the underwater and on-land detail doesn't seem to match up (the underwater stuff I followed much more closely, and it ended up pretty good). I learned a lot once I decided to just depart from the tutorial and finish it up in a different way, but I'm not likely to try and make this look any better. 

It was a valuable learning experience. The map style portrayed in this tutorial is damn near perfect to my eyes, and I'm really looking to master it. For a first attempt, this wasn't bad. If I were to change the coastline to match, it might almost be its own style.


----------



## Helleaven

> I've been studying this tutorial from the Cartographers Guild for a couple days now, and today I finally got the chance to try it out (it required downloading some plugins for GIMP before I could mimic some of the functions this guy uses).
> 
> The tutorial taught me a ton. I made some mistakes going through it, and ended up with a map that has much less detail and where the underwater and on-land detail doesn't seem to match up (the underwater stuff I followed much more closely, and it ended up pretty good). I learned a lot once I decided to just depart from the tutorial and finish it up in a different way, but I'm not likely to try and make this look any better.
> 
> It was a valuable learning experience. The map style portrayed in this tutorial is damn near perfect to my eyes, and I'm really looking to master it. For a first attempt, this wasn't bad. If I were to change the coastline to match, it might almost be its own style.



I have worked so hard on this tutorial, yet I couldn't do anything!!! Spending many hours for nothing made me so nervous that I have never tried again. 

Where did you find those plug-ins, I wonder? Maybe I will try once again if I can use them.


----------



## dyga19

Here's a map of Shariaku, a Pangea sized continent on Ekko.


----------



## Mindfire

...Entrails?


----------



## Jabrosky

I really like both Mindfire and Telcontar's recent maps, especially the Mediterranean-esque geography of the former!


----------



## dyga19

Mindfire said:


> ...Entrails?



It's called that because it literally looks like a bunch of giant organs strewn about the land. It's native inhabitants are a bunch of biomechanical monsters, so they've...done some landscaping.


----------



## Telcontar

Helleaven said:


> I have worked so hard on this tutorial, yet I couldn't do anything!!! Spending many hours for nothing made me so nervous that I have never tried again.
> 
> Where did you find those plug-ins, I wonder? Maybe I will try once again if I can use them.



Plug-in is here.

Once I understood the general technique of creating elevation effects by "revealing" a layer through a layer mask, and then bevel/embossing the result, I began to see the method behind the madness. Layer opacity, revealing through a mask, and bevel/emboss... those are the real lessons I got from this tutorial. Of course, now I want to put them back together in the _exact_ way that Tear does, cuz I love his end results so much.


----------



## Dan

*My map (Hadrene)*

Hi guys,

Thought I'd post my map that I am currently working on, it's revision 17 of my first version, I figure I'll go through a dozen more revisions, and move onto improved versions as I accumalate more research, and better ideas. So it's still an incredibly heavy work-in-progress piece (It has no elevation, mountains, forests/ woodland, major landmarks, city names, towns, places, province lines, or anything else other than the 'old' rough province areas).

This is the land of Hadrene, its been home to ancient tribes, and clans for tens-of-thousands of years, and home to a dozen great Kingdoms for hundreds. Its troubled history has been down to the many rivers which breakup the landscape, along with it's great mountain ranges, making it extremely difficult for any one group of people to assert control over all parts for any great period of time.

The map does not reflect the post-war effects of years 555 - 566, nor the disintegration of power that  occurred afterwards up until year 654, all of the provinces names are of those that existed before the war. Places like Astensa, Oaken Tor, Nicht Stane (Home to a number of small Clan provinces), and a few others gradually are broken up as the kingdom crumbles away, and small petty lords rise up to carve out greater provinces / kingdoms for themselves.

Of course I will be hoping to go a stage further and to place individual villages, towns, and major cities on the map, along with names which are, for the most part, derived from folk tales, legends, and histories of the local areas. 

I am currently working on my first piece of writing which is a back story of chronicles, tales, and poems of the Hadrene Kingdom creation, and the subsequent years when one ruling Household ruled over the entire landscape. (This covers the years 555 - 654. I hope to write a few more covering the past in detail too).

_Link to Google Drive (Can't link as image)_

I also have another section of the map, simply called The Great Continent, it has an outline, but nothing more than that. This will be an area that will take me considerable time to build up, I'd imagine several months worth of research, ideas, and story plots will come and go before I have this area as detailed as Hadrene.

Link to Google Drive

If anyone is interested I used MyPaint to construct the maps, with a mixture of mouse (For the outlines), and a tablet for other various parts.

(Sorry for the extremely long post, I'd write more on my creation process but I think I've waffled on enough).


----------



## Zero Angel

Wow, 30 pages of posts and only a handful of maps up in the gallery? I posted my world map there, so please check it out if you are so inclined. Thank you!


----------



## PrincessaMiranda

I guess this is Veda. Just a view of the Geography. I may change things later.


----------



## Zero Angel

Awesome map PrincessaMiranda! I thought of going elliptical but decided in the end to go for the deformed rectangular version that cannot accurately cover a globe.


----------



## PrincessaMiranda

Zero Angel said:


> Awesome map PrincessaMiranda! I thought of going elliptical but decided in the end to go for the deformed rectangular version that cannot accurately cover a globe.


 
I may have squashed it a little too much.  looks like I stepped on it. but it only took ten minutes to make.


----------



## Zero Angel

PrincessaMiranda said:


> I may have squashed it a little too much.  looks like I stepped on it. but it only took ten minutes to make.



Mine took 3 months -_-

Although I have a 4 foot by 4 foot pencil drawn version as a souvenir! That counts for something, right? Oh, it doesn't? Shucks.


----------



## PrincessaMiranda

Zero Angel said:


> Mine took 3 months -_-
> 
> Although I have a 4 foot by 4 foot pencil drawn version as a souvenir! That counts for something, right? Oh, it doesn't? Shucks.



Well, that is probably why it looks so good. I also have a much larger version, but it is very different because I drew it when I was nine years old. But it was good, considering.


----------



## Taro

very nicely done there Princess  wish i could do maps, dont have time or my darwing tablet; even though i cannot  draw if my life depended on it  maybe once i get some time i might get something on to here


----------



## korabas

*Here's a few of my draft fantasy maps*

Good thread. Here's a few draft fantasy maps that I was playing with.. the more developed one was the first one that I made, based on the Black Sea region. I wanted to create a few connected countries, with a fairly central smaller island that would be the focus of the conflict.

Sadly, I couldn't get my black sea reference map out of my head - it felt like the story was already set there, rather than on the bespoke map i made, so i went back and took a line map of Black Sea area (focused on Crimea) and basically edited it to suit what I wanted for my story. It's not finished yet, obviously, but feels more 'right' (even though it's ripping off an existing place!)

http://firedownbelow.deviantart.com/art/Fantasy-Map-draft-1-317283307

http://firedownbelow.deviantart.com/art/Fantasy-Map-draft-2-317283542

.


----------



## M.F.Hart

Well, your maps look interesting, even though I didn't understand them at all.
I also have a map, but I don't think it's ready to be shown to someone. Maybe sometimes I'll put it in here...


----------



## PrincessaMiranda

Taro said:


> very nicely done there Princess  wish i could do maps, dont have time or my darwing tablet; even though i cannot  draw if my life depended on it  maybe once i get some time i might get something on to here




Thanks.  I just used Paint on the computer. It didn't come out too bad though. Im a decent artist though. At least thats my opinion.


----------



## PrincessaMiranda

korabas- That's a pretty good map! I focused more on the entire world, because most of my stories involve that place, but I should create smaller maps for the regions and even some towns.


----------



## Chime85

This is my world, from a large scale. 








Key: The world of Affron

01: Velecel
02: Mystelon
03: Shoul-Hun
04 Lasaphan

Each piece has a much more detailed plotting of places and key points. For the time being, a simple world map gives a quick illustrate guide to the world of Affron.

x


----------



## Lunaairis

This is the second draft of my Khayra world map. The first one I did was done in pencil and paper, so this one is large step forward. Khayra World Map by ~Dragonlegends on deviantART  I made it in photoshop 7, and it only took an hour to draw up the map using the brush tool and then erasing chunks using the polygonal lasso.


----------



## Zero Angel

Hey guys,

Deviantart had an article about maps with some featured work this week. Here's the link:

Mythical Cartography, The Artistry of Maps by $techgnotic on deviantART


----------



## Mindfire

BEHOLD MY GREAT AND TERRIBLE POWERS OF THREAD NECROMANCY! And also this neat map!






Click for full resolution.


----------



## Jabrosky

Beautiful map you have there, Mindfire!

Now behold, an alternate timeline version of ancient Northern Africa from my new historical fantasy project _Half-Sisters_:


----------



## Addison

I know of two great maps. One is in the book Eragon. The other is of Farworld, and here's the link:  FarWorld | Written by J. Scott Savage

The map is in the Extras section.


----------



## Mindfire

Eragon's map is meh. I don't deny the artistic skill required to create it, but it has weird things like rivers looping back on themselves. I pull fast ones with geography all the time, but I think there is a line somewhere. But, considering the map separate from the book and ignoring the rivers, it is artfully made.


----------



## Malik

Map of the continent I created for _Dragon's Trail. _







The trick to this was creating a continent that had reasons to be not quite at war but with nation-states that have no hard borders, are vastly overextended from their centers of power, and are always giving each other the stinkeye. In pre-industrial states, geography creates tension; when you live off the land, where you live is who you are.


----------



## Twook00

Here's mine.

Create a Fantasy Map in 12 Easy Steps | wifofoo


----------



## Jabrosky

Map for a novel I am outlining called _The Godslayer_


----------



## Asura Levi

I think I posted it somewhere else but here we go: 
The original draw, by hand:






And the scanned, coloured, printed and re-scanned one (lost the original digital file).


----------



## Zero Angel

Asura Levi said:


> I think I posted it somewhere else but here we go:
> 
> And the scanned, coloured, printed and re-scanned one (lost the original digital file).



Very attractive map! Reminds me of Dragon Warrior for some reason. Nice!


----------



## Kevlar

My brand new WIP map. Other than eating and working out I spent most of my day in Photoshop doing this. Close up the coasts are still VERY undetailed, this map is 2.5% of the full size one.


----------



## Mindfire

Wow. I do not have the stomach for that kind of detail. Hat's off to you, sir.


----------



## Zero Angel

Kevlar said:


> My brand new WIP map. Other than eating and working out I spent most of my day in Photoshop doing this. Close up the coasts are still VERY undetailed, this map is 2.5% of the full size one.


Is white the land or black? Very cool either way.


----------



## Kevlar

Zero Angel said:


> Is white the land or black? Very cool either way.



White's land, black's ocean. I do eventually plan to make the map pretty, though I'm also hoping to have one in a topographic style where I can pick out individual mountains. Having tried that multiple times before I know I'm destined to failure, but you can't win if you don't try.



Mindfire said:


> Wow. I do not have the stomach for that kind of detail. Hat's off to you, sir.



Trust me it only looks this detailed due to the scaling. When I zoom in all the way this is what it looks like at the currently most detailed spot:


----------



## Mindfire

Kevlar said:


> White's land, black's ocean. I do eventually plan to make the map pretty, though I'm also hoping to have one in a topographic style where I can pick out individual mountains. Having tried that multiple times before I know I'm destined to failure, but you can't win if you don't try.
> 
> 
> 
> Trust me it only looks this detailed due to the scaling. When I zoom in all the way this is what it looks like at the currently most detailed spot



Eh, your coastlines are still more detailed than mine are. I've posted my map elsewhere in this thread, but I'll repost so you can see what I'm talking about (plus this is a slightly newer version with some added details, but also a few imperfections since editing isn't 100% done).





Click for full-size.

As you can see, my coastlines aren't nearly as detailed and elaborate as yours. I'm more of a big picture kinda guy, I suppose.


----------



## Zero Angel

I'm somewhere in-between broad coasts and detail I suppose. Here's a clean hi-res version of my previously posted world: 







Click for more hi-res

Although some areas are quite hi-res, you have to figure that this world is a bit larger than Earth-normal, so those coastlines are actually not that detailed at all. Each continent was between one-two 8 1/2 by 11 pieces of paper that I individually scanned and edited together, so it was relatively easy to get as much detail as I did.

I then taped together all the original maps and it ended up being like 3 feet by 4 feet. It was legendary.


----------



## CupofJoe

Twook00 said:


> Here's mine.
> 
> Create a Fantasy Map in 12 Easy Steps | wifofoo



This is a really good way to for me to get the [creative] juices going!


----------



## Jabrosky

Here's a modified, _much_ more geographically extensive evolution of the map I showed earlier. Now comes with a legend and place names!







Oh, and I like Mindfire's new map too, especially now that it has flags.


----------



## Zero Angel

Jabrosky said:


> Here's a modified, _much_ more geographically extensive evolution of the map I showed earlier. Now comes with a legend and place names!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh, and I like Mindfire's new map too, especially now that it has flags.



I haven't been able to see your last two maps. Just me?


----------



## Jabrosky

Let me try again:







And its unrefined predecessor:


----------



## Twook00

CupofJoe said:


> This is a really good way to for me to get the [creative] juices going!



I thought it was a lot of fun too.  Very basic, but neat.


----------



## Foah

Spent a couple of hours creating this base for my world, pretty happy with how it looks so far


----------



## Jabrosky

Foah said:


> Spent a couple of hours creating this base for my world, pretty happy with how it looks so far


I adore those mountains! They look 3D.


----------



## Foah

Jabrosky said:


> I adore those mountains! They look 3D.



Just some simple Bevel & Emboss in photoshop ^^


----------



## Mathias

Heres my map, made it in photoshop. Not a final one but getting close...


----------



## Foah

Mathias said:


> Heres my map, made it in photoshop. Not a final one but getting close...



I don't think you managed to embed your image correctly ^^ Not showing up in the post, at least not for me


----------



## Mathias

Oh sorry, maybe this will work? http://mythicscribes.com/forums/members/mathias-albums-world-map-picture600-map.jpg


----------



## Jabrosky

*Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven Map*
                 This map of Africa, which I made  in Photoshop, is not necessarily complete, but right now all of the  locations labeled on it feature in my story _Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven_  as I have planned it so far. The major African civilizations that will  be visited are Kemet (ancient Egypt) in the northeast, Mali in the  northwest, and Zimbabwe in the south. One of the supporting characters  comes from Hispania in the far north while the villain is Babylonian. I  may add more labels in the future as I write the book and include more  locations.

In case the above image embedding doesn't work...


----------



## ascanius

*A little necromancy *

Figured I pull a little Necromancy and share my 30% completed map, it's mostly what has been taking up 90% of my writing time.  It's so excruciatingly tedious I'm running out of procrastination methods.







I also learned how to use the search function after going through all the world building pages.  Sometimes I'm a little slow


----------



## Noldona

Here is the world I am currently building. The world was generated with Fractal Terrains 3 (FT3). The political overlays were done in Photoshop. I exported the world from FT3 and am currently working on Campaign Cartographer 3 (CC3) on producing a series of linked maps for the different continents, nations, cities, etc. The idea is to eventually have a whole link atlas for the world down to each town mapped and floorplans for at least the important buildings if not all of them.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vjir083h1QYnI0clpGLXdiM2M&authuser=0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vjir083h1QWjBQcmNQVkhST1k&authuser=0

While skimming through the thread, I saw several people against the offerings from Profantasy. While I agree it can be pricey verses free options like Gimp and such, it is a great piece of software for what it's made for. Maybe it's just because my world building is more focused on tabletop RPG campaign use then novel writing, but I definitely thing the cost is worth it.


----------



## arbiter117

Here's what I've been working on. The basic map layout has been something I've been redrawing for years, but only recently I said to myself: "Self, digital art looks like a fun hobby to take up." So I got a tablet and Corel Painter 2015 and made an attempt at making my map digital. Here's what I have:

Eredros by arbiter11711 on DeviantArt


----------



## Reilith

I was really hoping there is a thread like this! Yaaay! You guys are so talented!
@Mathias, I know which tutorial you used for the map, I saw the same one actually, but didn't use it much. ^^ 
Mine doesn't show the whole world, so I might do another less detailed sometimes, to show the whole known world, just for the sake of it.
Anyway, here's my still unfinished map(the roads are missing and I am thinking of maybe doing a close-up on just Therannia, since the whole story is set there): http://oi59.tinypic.com/2i0zzav.jpg

It is done completely in PS, I used some wonderful free brush sets from dA that I shared in another thread. It has around 13 layers at the moment, plus all the names are in separate ones. 

Also a question, is the font too hard to read? I really liked it for the map, but I am not sure if it is readable for a map.


----------



## Noldona

Reilith said:


> Also a question, is the font too hard to read? I really liked it for the map, but I am not sure if it is readable for a map.



The font itself isn't hard, but the size makes it difficult. It you scaled up the size a bit, I think it would fine.

On an unrelated note, is your avatar Vin from the Mistborn series?


----------



## Reilith

I was also thinking of re-sizing it, but there are many important points I want to include in this version, so I have yet to get to a decision. It is still the alpha version of the map.

And yes, it is Vin! I fell in love with Sanderson's Mistborn, I am currently reading "The Hero Of Ages". I know people see them as very big, slow paced and wordy books, but I found so much I was looking for in terms of writing and characterization in his books that I can't seem to put them down.


----------



## Noldona

I forget where I read it and don't recall all the rules about it, but I recall seeing something about placing names on a map and readability. One of the things I remember is that major places like cities are larger font size then the surrounding towns, and there is some space around the important points. Even if there is something there that needs to be labels, it shouldn't be labels because it would interfere with the major label. As you zoom in, more labels appear to provide the more information for those places closer to the center. It was using how Google Maps labels things as an example because it a very readable map.

This is one of the reasons I'm doing my maps in FT3 and CC3. It allows me to easily develop different maps at different zoom levels and link them together. Plus, I can then package up all the maps and documents I write up for the world, and anyone can browse through it with their free viewer software. You could do something similar using free tools such as Inkscape, Gimp, and generating a webpage with hyperlinked area maps (assuming you are familiar with HTML. If you want to get really fancy, you can even generate Google Maps files and make a Maps version of your world. However, that is even more complex and I'm not sure what all would be required to do that.

I read through Elantris and the Mistborn trilogy while waiting on Brandon Sanderson to finish up book 14 of Wheel of Time. He had taken over the series after Robert Jordan died and I was out of books to read in that series, so I decided to pick up some of his stuff to see how it was. The Mistborn world is awesome. I even got the Mistborn RPG book. Haven't run a game in it yet so can't really comment on the system, but love the world. There are suppose to be making a prequel video game that will be releasing sometime soon too.


----------



## ascanius

Noldona said:


> Here is the world I am currently building. The world was generated with Fractal Terrains 3 (FT3). The political overlays were done in Photoshop. I exported the world from FT3 and am currently working on Campaign Cartographer 3 (CC3) on producing a series of linked maps for the different continents, nations, cities, etc. The idea is to eventually have a whole link atlas for the world down to each town mapped and floorplans for at least the important buildings if not all of them.
> 
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vjir083h1QYnI0clpGLXdiM2M&authuser=0
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vjir083h1QWjBQcmNQVkhST1k&authuser=0
> 
> While skimming through the thread, I saw several people against the offerings from Profantasy. While I agree it can be pricey verses free options like Gimp and such, it is a great piece of software for what it's made for. Maybe it's just because my world building is more focused on tabletop RPG campaign use then novel writing, but I definitely thing the cost is worth it.



I like what you have so far, it would be nice to see it at a better resolution though, to see more details and all.  I like the landforms but from this scale it looks like there is a lot of noise and i'm not sure why?

I use Krita for painting and the Gimp for editing, I do see the point in buys software when there is so much greate open source software that is just as good.  I guess it depends on how much time you want to put into it.  I did everything by hand so it's taken a very long time to do. You can't really see from just looking at it but if you right click and view image you can see what I'm getting at.



arbiter117 said:


> Here's what I've been working on. The basic map layout has been something I've been redrawing for years, but only recently I said to myself: "Self, digital art looks like a fun hobby to take up." So I got a tablet and Corel Painter 2015 and made an attempt at making my map digital. Here's what I have:
> 
> Eredros by arbiter11711 on DeviantArt



It has a Van Gogh feel to it, I don't really like the clouds though.



Reilith said:


> I was really hoping there is a thread like this! Yaaay! You guys are so talented!
> @Mathias, I know which tutorial you used for the map, I saw the same one actually, but didn't use it much. ^^
> Mine doesn't show the whole world, so I might do another less detailed sometimes, to show the whole known world, just for the sake of it.
> Anyway, here's my still unfinished map(the roads are missing and I am thinking of maybe doing a close-up on just Therannia, since the whole story is set there): http://oi59.tinypic.com/2i0zzav.jpg
> 
> It is done completely in PS, I used some wonderful free brush sets from dA that I shared in another thread. It has around 13 layers at the moment, plus all the names are in separate ones.
> 
> Also a question, is the font too hard to read? I really liked it for the map, but I am not sure if it is readable for a map.



I don't think the font, nor the font size work, it's too hard to figure out what the letters are.  Other than that my only other thing is maybe making the rivers much smaller, they look too big and kinda overwhelm everything else.


----------



## Terry Greer

In Jangada my islands float (aerially) - and I'm currently building a number of them as maps. This is the island from the first novel Haadrat 
	

	
	
		
		



		
			





Created using photoshop and worldmachine


----------



## Reilith

@ascanius Yeah, I do have a feeling I will have to re-work it totally to get the hang of it. This is my first ever map after all. I just wanted to have something that will give me the exact positioning of all the places to help me while writing.

Noldona I haven't read Elantris, but I will eventually get to it. I first want to finish all the Mistborn novels. The world there is so amazing, and it is so easy to read I think I found a new favourite. I'd love to do a frp game in that world if I could. As a player though, not the Dungeon Master. Didn't know about the game, I'll have to look it up.


----------



## K.S. Crooks

My map can be viewed at Galyndor Interactive Map - K.S. CrooksK.S. Crooks. It only shows the main country, the entire world is on the gallery page. The main page of the website I used to create my map is donjon; RPG Tools. This site provides ideas for plots, characters, goals and several other things you may want in your story. The map maker is at donjon; Fractal World Generator. It is a nice tool and the map you create can be saved to your computer and opened in Photoshop to modify it as you like. Hope people can make use of this.


----------



## Noldona

ascanius said:


> I like what you have so far, it would be nice to see it at a better resolution though, to see more details and all.  I like the landforms but from this scale it looks like there is a lot of noise and i'm not sure why?
> 
> I use Krita for painting and the Gimp for editing, I do see the point in buys software when there is so much greate open source software that is just as good.  I guess it depends on how much time you want to put into it.  I did everything by hand so it's taken a very long time to do. You can't really see from just looking at it but if you right click and view image you can see what I'm getting at.



What appears to be noise is due to the fact that the world was generated using fractals. The software I used is called Fractal Terrains 3 and with it you can generate worlds with different options. It's also vector based, so I can actually zoom in on the parts that appear to be noisy and actually see the variations of the height of the landmass. The images I have are just basic exports I used to layout the nations and then posted to Google drive to share with my brother for discussion on my world since he is a big gamer too and is a good sounding board for ideas. I'm currently working on exporting multiple levels of the world into Campaign Cartographer and making linked maps. With that, you will be able to zoom into different levels of the world and see more detail. I might even go crazy and see if I can generate the Google maps files needed to provide that type of interface for the world.


----------



## Malik




----------



## Manalodia

*World Map*








I'm still working on the readability of text and spacing. It's a little more detailed than some, but I wanted a few key places to be on here that aren't capitol cities and large towns. That detail will likely be for regional maps of each kingdom. This is my first attempt at mapping, and definitely a while since I've used Photoshop for something. My map of Nis has changed quite a bit over the years and hopefully is coherent.


----------



## speculativejester

Something I've been working on for a little bit. I used the Donjon world generator and then added some of my own labels and rivers. Still a WIP, but I think it looks pretty nice.


----------



## Noldona

speculativejester said:


> Something I've been working on for a little bit. I used the Donjon world generator and then added some of my own labels and rivers. Still a WIP, but I think it looks pretty nice.



Assuming the world is earth sized, it would be interesting to see how the culture on the islands in the west vary from those in the east. Since they are much smaller and farther removed from everyone else, I can easily see something like a Japanese type culture (assuming you are going for standard European fantasy for the rest of the world). Could be a major culture clash between the two.


----------



## speculativejester

Well to be completely honest, I'm not even sure of the cultures of this world I have created. I build world in a top-down manner, and this is a project where the only things I really have decided are the origin of the universe, the resulting gods, the source of magic, and now finally the physical layout of the world. The culture is something I'll be working on next, and I'll keep you input in mind! I think a culture class would definitely be an interesting tie to have.


----------



## Noldona

I'm working on my world in a top-down manner as well starting with the solar system. However, I found that I work through these higher levels of things, I come up with ideas for lower level things. Such as my world orbits the primary star (a G2 star) of a binary start system. This means the planet would have 2 suns with the second one (a K2 star) causing more of an orange twilight then actual daylight. This lead to the idea about a culture seeing the suns are great dragon gods. The primary star would be the gold dragon while the secondary star is the red dragon. Their orbiting looks like the great dragons battling in the sky. This lead to developing a whole religion in my world based upon this concept which actually lead to the development of 2 of the largest nations in my world which are at war with each other due to religious differences. One believe the gold dragon is the good god and the red dragon is evil (Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, working name) while the other nation (Kingdom of the Red Dragon, working name) is reverse. This also left to a superstition among the KotGD where the orange twilight period is considered bad luck and most people try to avoid being outside during that period if they can help it. I also have started in on a tribal religion based upon the 3 moons and them being a great wolf pack.


----------



## Malik

Dorking around with Inkarnate Beta. I exported the file as a .png and then added the rivers in Gimp.


----------



## Nomadica

This is what I have of my world map so far. but I'm going to change the mountains a bit.





Iso, a tidally locked mood (like our own) with most of the population on the half facing the planet Oriath to take advantage of the light Oriath reflects during the long dark cycle. Because it's spin is so much slower than Earth, most of the water is located at the poles with the land mass around the equator. Also due to the water being polled toward Oriath there is more land on the half facing away from Oriath.


----------



## Miskatonic

Started a thread for mine. Figure it's faster to link the thread than re-post everything. 

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/world-building/15402-completed-map-illiathar.html


----------



## vaiyt

This is not even close to how the map's going to look by the time it's done, but you can see the shape of continents and the placement of mountains.


----------



## Drakevarg

My maps aren't nearly as nice as most - I use what I call the "zoom and enhance" technique. I draw my maps strictly as grids, so as to keep the scale consistent, that way I can create a more detailed map of specific regions by making each square on the larger map represent a 5x5 grid on the more detailed one. This makes it so the map maintains a reasonably organic look without having to worry about inconsistencies from one drawing to the next.





As an example - the southern continent of Chonan Tochi, as it appeared early in the First Era.


----------



## jm.milks

This first picture shows an incomplete political map of the south eastern end of the globe, during a period known as the 'Mystic's Era'.

All of the colored domains north of the Neutral Wildlands of Itvul belong to a humanoid species known as the Doth, who migrated to the world as Denisovans long before the humans of the kingdoms below the wildlands did.







This second picture moves a little north and about a century into the future. The results of the Mystic Era have destroyed the political structure of the Sudaid humans. The Doth have merged into a socialist union of nations and the Humans of Northern Quubi are trying to establish a stable infrastructure in the warring lands of Teldras, Land of Migrants.

This map takes place during the beginning of the 'Orphaned Era' 

The different Eras on my timeline are...

Age of Discovery
The Old-Odyssey 
Colonization
Mystic Era
Orphaned Era
The Eternal Night 
New Odyssey

Next up: labeling geographical regions


----------



## Nomadica

jm.milks the land shapes looks very organic and realistic. Did you draw it yourself?


----------



## jm.milks

Nomadica said:


> jm.milks the land shapes looks very organic and realistic. Did you draw it yourself?


Yeah. Initially with a mouse but then I went back to add details with a pen and tablet. 

I took tectonics into consideration, as well as major events and dual planethood, so you'll be able to see where a few of my fault lines are and maybe make some other observations about it.


----------



## vaiyt

Mine was done by splicing real world landmasses together, using progressively smaller shapes to create the details.


----------



## Reilith

This is a great thread! I love to see this sort of creativity! And finding out new techniques for mapping is also great.
I have two maps, one from my previous WIP that's on hiatus, and another from my current WIP.
The first one is a map of Therannia, the country the story is set in:






This is the world I am currently working on. It is not the full map, there are a few other continents, but they are not important to the story so I didn't include them. There will also be close up maps for the two countries at war - the north-western Human Kingdom of Naisan and the south-east Veelae Monarchy:





Both maps were done in PS, in many many layers. The second map is not finished.


----------



## Chessie

Reilith, what do you use to make your maps again?


----------



## Reilith

It was Photoshop. I used the brushes I found on dA that are free for use.


----------



## Malik

The final, tweaked from old papers and hand-drawn maps.


----------



## Chessie

Holy cow, Malik! Your map is simply amazing!


----------



## Malik

Chesterama said:


> Holy cow, Malik! Your map is simply amazing!



Thanks. It all comes back to worldbuilding: in epic fantasy, the world is a major character with its own arc. It has to be as developed as any other main character. It has to have a reason for existing, it has to impact the other characters, and it has to be changed in some way at the end.

In epic fantasy, the map is the instigator of your story, and a hastily conceived or unrealistic map will raise more questions than it seeks to answer. I see this a lot in self-pubbed fantasy; a lot of maps are self-indulgent or badly researched -- either the layouts don't make any sense, or they don't generate friction on their own. Friction is a form of energy, and energy is what makes stories go. I really think that if you create your world correctly and draw your map accordingly, the strategic level aspects of the story should write themselves. Then you take well-developed characters and put them in it and write down what happens. I look at my map and I see wars brewing. Everywhere.

Once you know exactly what your world looks like, and why it is the way it is, you can use pretty much any graphics program and the results will be nice.

I have a blog post on maps on my site. I think I'll do a second one this week, getting into plot generation through maps. Maybe today.


----------



## xerolee

Hey everyone, I have recently designed my first Map. Unsure if its any good let me know 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





Sent from my HTC One mini using Tapatalk


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## Malik

It's nicely drawn, but there's no scale, which I think is really important for maps of island chains. Are the major islands a month's sail away from each other? A week's? An easy swim?

I love the names.


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## xerolee

Ahhh of course
Thanks Malik 

Sent from my HTC One mini using Tapatalk


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## Demesnedenoir

Here is a map of the world, not a final by any means. It's poster-sized photoshop work. The creation of the world is a combination of mystic and tectonic, hence there are geographic anomalies that wouldn't exist in our world... see the continent of SutÃ¢n.

You can also see more images at:World Overview Ã¢€” Sundering the Gods


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## DragonOfTheAerie

I'm still working on a rough draft of my map. Hand-drawn.


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## Malik

Demesnedenoir said:


> Here is a map of the world, not a final by any means. It's poster-sized photoshop work. The creation of the world is a combination of mystic and tectonic, hence there are geographic anomalies that wouldn't exist in our world... see the continent of SutÃ¢n.
> 
> You can also see more images at:World Overview Ã¢â‚¬” Sundering the Gods



Wow.

Just, wow. You built that in Photoshop?


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## Demesnedenoir

Yeah, I used Fractal Terrains 3 for the basic outlining, but I wasn't totally satisfied with that, so I took the outline and did a full photoshop overhaul. If I knew how many hours that took, I still wouldn't admit it, LOL. I've done some smaller regional maps too, a set of islands and one larger island.

If you checked out the website you can see the globe view of the map.

Gotta say too, the mountain technique i found on Cartographer's Guild, the mountain details are just awesome when you zoom on the full sized original.


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## Miskatonic

Looking good Demesnedenoir!


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## anduril38

Demesnedenoir said:


> Yeah, I used Fractal Terrains 3 for the basic outlining, but I wasn't totally satisfied with that, so I took the outline and did a full photoshop overhaul. If I knew how many hours that took, I still wouldn't admit it, LOL. I've done some smaller regional maps too, a set of islands and one larger island.
> 
> If you checked out the website you can see the globe view of the map.
> 
> Gotta say too, the mountain technique i found on Cartographer's Guild, the mountain details are just awesome when you zoom on the full sized original.



This is seriously cool man, good job.


----------



## Demesnedenoir

Thanks everyone, good to have other folks like what took a stupid amount of hours to create.

The main problem with map making is it can really eat into writing time, LOL. Now it's been a couple years since doing serious work on this, I've also pretty much forgot how to do anything, so I'd have to reverse engineer to make major changes. But on the other hand, for most geopolitical backstory I have everything I need. I did a blow up this island, but the story leaves here, so I didn't go as crazy in detail as I'd like, LOL. The ice tundra in the north was kind of interesting to attempt.


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## anduril38

That looks good man. I'll show my map when I have it together


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## Malik

Well, son of a bitch. Inkarnate won't let me use the map I built. Since it's beta, they won't let me publish it. I'll have to build it all over again in GIMP. At least I know what I'm doing this week.


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## Malik

Open to suggestions, but I'm pretty much going to have to Tolkien this if I want to make my suspense dates. 

It will be in black and white in the hardcopy books, so here's what I'm working on right now.

I'm ready to go after the Inkarnate guys with lawyers, guns, and money to use that other map.


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## anduril38

Malik said:


> Well, son of a bitch. Inkarnate won't let me use the map I built. Since it's beta, they won't let me publish it. I'll have to build it all over again in GIMP. At least I know what I'm doing this week.



Indeed  In it's current state Inkarnate can't be used commercially (But don't seem to be too strict on it. I had a long discussion with them and didn't get in any trouble, but as long as it's murky I won't use mine commercially.) I'm having the same problem. How do you use GIMP?


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## Malik

I downloaded some freebie Tolkein brushes and map brush tools off of Deviantart, free for use -- I double-checked. Then I redrew the map. 

I used a repeating mountain for the main backbones. Then I went back and added different peaks by hand, varying the sizes and getting specific. I'll still have to do a continuity pass in the novel. I drew the rivers using several passes of fine lines to look hand-inked, imported two different fonts that seemed close but different (old maps often were made by multiple people), and then looked for a parchment background.

I found this one, today. It's a scan of an actual parchment. I went over the map and did some blurring in the areas where the paper is stained. 

Inkarnate has a feature on their FB page of an author using their map, so I don't know WTF is up with them. What they showed me from the new "pro" version looks terrible. It's basically what I'm doing right now, basic gamer stuff. I was very impressed with the beta. I don't know what they're thinking.

So here's where I am, as of this afternoon:


----------



## A.J.

Still working with mine, but one of the best basic layout builder has got to be INKARNATE. Great for land mass.


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## FifthView

This is the map I'm currently designing for my WIP.  I haven't even settled on names for the various kingdoms, mountain ranges, and so forth, so they aren't included.  

I'm a little puzzled about drawing borders.  Where borders are rivers, coast, and mountain ranges, there's less problem.  But when I stick a dotted/dashed line across a plain, it comes out looking or seeming arbitrary.

I used a fractal generator for creating the main outline and shape of the map.  The problem with that approach is that even when you randomly generate many to find one you like, the result might not quite match up with some elements you've had in mind for the world & story.  I thought I was fine until I began to add details and saw the map itself introduced restrictions and limits requiring modification of some original thoughts.  But I've pretty much worked that out.  

The forests, locations of most capital cities (or centers of power), etc., may be altered.  (With the forests, I just randomly place them and shaped them when I had a very general idea of where they should go.)

A lot of this is still up for revision.


----------



## Asura Levi

Maps are not my favourite part of world-building, is the actual reason why I do any world building at all, just so I can create Maps!

I made this post on the art section of the forum, an in-progress development of a major city.

I also made this regional map using Inkarnate.


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## Talhaiarn

Hello everyone,

First post here. This is a first draft of my fantasy world. This is the continent of Lauras in the year 1279 (no dating system as of yet). Its roughly the size of India with 13 independent nations. I'm letting the world tell me the stories to write.
Let me know what you know.
What programs are recommended to create a map?


----------



## Talhaiarn

I aim to let my world tell me the stories to write about. I'm aiming for around 3,000 years of history for my world, most of which I have plotted out.
I have no ability with software of any kind so decided to sketch out my map for a reference. Let me know what you think.


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## Michael K. Eidson

When you want to include an image in a post, you have to make sure you use the URL of the actual image file, not the URL of the page on which the image is shown:


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## elemtilas

Talhaiarn said:


> What programs are recommended to create a map?



I like what you've drawn thus far!

Pen-n-Paper v1.0 is also what I use. Better than all the bland same-ole-same-ole fantasy maps out there, in my opinion.

A map of the interior of *Gea*:







A map of a little town in the Eastlands called Sulerio:


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## Talhaiarn

Ah thank you  first post still getting used to things!


----------



## Lisselle

My eight year old 'working map'. I think it's a scrawl of ideas, places and distances only I can understand. 

It has spawned countless nicer versions on good paper and painted with water colour, yet this is my most used Map when I'm working on my Book primarily set on this continent. (Yes, it's a continent!)


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## pmmg

Maps are always cool. I love seeing them all.


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## elemtilas

Awesome maps, Lisselle! Tea stains & overlapping notations --- gotta love it! I've loads of old maps I've never scanned in.

Here's one I did scan in, back when the lands of The World still looked a lot like Eurasia:


----------



## Lisselle

That's fabulous, and piques my interest in your story!

I'm pretty sure the stains are coffee, ha.  I spilled a cup several years ago and now all my sketch books are stained with it, bah!


----------



## elemtilas

Lisselle said:


> I'm pretty sure the stains are coffee, ha.  I spilled a cup several years ago and now all my sketch books are stained with it, bah!



Adds character to the pages!



> That's fabulous, and piques my interest in your story!



Thanks for that! I must admit that unlike very many folks here I am not a writer and am not doing this in order to produce a novel. (If a novel ever takes, that's a different matter, but it's not my goal). I do however like writing stories set in The World, and I've put a few of them online (_*here if you're interested*_). I also like writing books from the in-world perspective. So far, I've got one of those to a point where I'd consider it "done". That's the _Chorography_, a snapshot of a little bit of everything about The World from the perspective of a particular scholar of Narutanea (the Eastlands) in the present day. 

I guess if there is a story here at all, it would be the story of the entire world, of Gea itself: the ultimate beginnings of Creation when the entirety of All That Is came into being; the era when Gea's mother swept together the cosmic dust to form her family of planets; the eras when the mighty Powers entered the cosmos to give it order; the deeds of the great Beings that underlie the foundations of the world; the awakening of Peoples on the surface and the rise and long histories and ultimate decline of their empires and the individuals who played their parts in the pageant; and on through the ages of successive civilisations until at last the story winds down towards its conclusion and the Seven Squirrels of Regenreck at last discover the location of the World Tree, and the Seven Stars fall from the sky, the seven fruits fall from the Tree and the Tree itself is destroyed bringing an end to All That Is.

Except that in that far distant wreckage is left a Seed...

And we all know what happens with Seeds...

Probably not a marketable three part tale, but there it is in the proverbial nutshell!


----------



## Lisselle

It's very comprehensive. You're work is immersive and thorough. I love all your drawings.  You have so much information there, it looks like you are a writer!


----------



## Insolent Lad

This is the map that goes (more or less) with my novel coming out in June, 'The Crocodile's Son.' This hand-drawn version will probably not be the one that goes in the book. I scanned my drawing — the outlines, rivers, mountains — into Corel Draw (my graphics program of choice) and added the text and some refinements.


----------



## RedAngel

This is my map of Arahimheim. 

My source map is like 24,000 pixels by 12,000 pixels. I use that image as an overlay for google earth. I like using google earth because you can drop the pins down for locations to name as well as drop in pictures of said location. I also have better res images of each of the continents as well that show streams and other points of interest.







This is a territory map I am still working on for the 1st age. It is still not finished but I plan on making one for each age in time.


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## jm.milks

@RedAngel

I have to tell you that your territory animation is one of the coolest things I've ever seen fantasy map-wise. It's like the imagination candy that satisfies all of my desires in life.

It's straight up radicool, yo

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G928A using Tapatalk


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## RedAngel

Many thanks!

I saw a territory map like that on youtube for ancient empires of the past and decided to give it a go. 

I am treating each frame as a year. But since this map represents the rise of the gods it is measured in "Aeons". It certainly helps to visualize how things went down during those times and the rise and fall of the gods and other celestial beings of the age.


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## FifthView

The thing I love about this map is its simplicity. It's clean, to the point for the story (I assume) without a lot of extra info that might not be needed for the story. Your map would also look good for an e-book, at the smaller scale, due to its simplicity.

I'm currently working on an expansion of a map, really just a blowup of one small part of a map that will be the location of a smaller scale story--but I always seem to want to put more and more and more on it, heh.



Insolent Lad said:


> This is the map that goes (more or less) with my novel coming out in June, 'The Crocodile's Son.' This hand-drawn version will probably not be the one that goes in the book. I scanned my drawing — the outlines, rivers, mountains — into Corel Draw (my graphics program of choice) and added the text and some refinements.


----------



## elemtilas

FifthView said:


> The thing I love about Insolent Lad's map is its simplicity. It's clean, to the point for the story (I assume) without a lot of extra info that might not be needed for the story. Your map would also look good for an e-book, at the smaller scale, due to its simplicity.



De gustibus, I suppose. Agree about the clean lines and so forth. The font chosen is very pleasant, and the mountains are nicely shaded. But for me, this map is but a starting point. It's too empty! There's clearly nowhere near enough information given: no borders, no roads, the mountain ranges aren't named. No towns or regions named. Those are the kinds of things that have readers drawn into the world and asking, well about XYZ...where do they come into the story!? Where does that road go, and who lives there and what tales come from their lands?



> I'm currently working on an expansion of a map, really just a blowup of one small part of a map that will be the location of a smaller scale story--but I always seem to want to put more and more and more on it, heh.



More is best!


----------



## Insolent Lad

I've learned to keep my maps simple for inclusion in a book. More detail is simply lost fitting it on a 6 by 9 page, and a cluttered, unreadable map is worse than no map at all.


----------



## Lunaairis

I forget I have this map and I don't think I uploaded it here yet. But -slides it into this thread-






I made this map as an in world source for the Ocsolis Dominion. They are attempting to standardize everything so the world is simply called 'the world' . Names of physical places are a little harder to standardize so they still call them by their old names.


----------



## Antaus

I haven't added anything to this yet, like kingdom borders, cities, etc. This is just the basic map.


----------



## RedAngel

Nice map Antaus I like the contrast of the landscape.


----------



## FifthView

Just an update: Inkarnate now offers a commercial license. It's a yearly subscription model, but according to a comment left on their Facebook page, any map created during a paid subscription period is usable after the subscription has ended.



Malik said:


> Well, son of a bitch. Inkarnate won't let me use the map I built. Since it's beta, they won't let me publish it. I'll have to build it all over again in GIMP. At least I know what I'm doing this week.


----------



## RedAngel

Here is a style I am not toying with.







I went back and added a layer of my map behind my territory map. I plant to continue working on it when I get time to extend it and to add names to the empires on the map itself at some point.


----------



## Ruru

Loving all these maps! Can't stop watching @RedAngle's territory map, its fascinating. I do find that there is a bit of an art to producing a map that works well in a printed or e-book: too much detail and its hard to read in such a small image, but then it also isn't satisfying. I want to know about all the other things the world I'm reading about holds!

While I have a good few trustworthy 'planning maps' like Lisselle's tea-stained beauty, I have drawn up a fuller version, mostly so I can see on paper what I'm working with in my head. I've used this map to plan cultures, roads my characters will take, the landscape they might have to go through, particularly to help with my own consistency further down the line!

This was drawn in Sketchbook, and is normally quite big so I can zoom around it a bit. It doesn't have all the details yet, but thought I would share it anyway .


----------



## elemtilas

This is a map of Eosphora, a part of one of the great _landrealms_, or continents, of Gea.  Cartographers *there* use a 288deg circle, and this map shows about 9degE to 44degE and 12degN to 36degN. Orientation is East uppermost. It's definitely not intended for inclusion in a trade paperback sized book!


----------



## Ruru

Thanks @Sheilawisz, for getting the pic to display


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## Mythopoet

@elemtilas your map is so very Tolkien-esque! It's beautiful and I love it.

My map is essentially this:







Which was a world map made by Claudius Ptolemy around 150 AD. (Though the above is a later, redrawn version.)


----------



## elemtilas

Mythopoet said:


> @elemtilas your map is so very Tolkien-esque! It's beautiful and I love it.



Thanks much!  Yeah, there's a pretty clear line of inspiration from Tolkien's map making to mine!



> My map is essentially this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which was a world map made by Claudius Ptolemy around 150 AD. (Though the above is a later, redrawn version.)



Now that's cheating!  You got one of the most renown cartographers ever to draw your map for you! 

These maps are delicious indeed! So much blue! Phantom islands! Phantom seas!


----------



## Noxius

My first finished map  It is just a realtivley small part, an island namend Ilaendrin that is around the size of Borneo, but I'm pretty proud of it (and I'd love to hear some feedback!)


----------



## elemtilas

Noxius said:


>



I like the shading in the mountains --- that's very nicely done! I would note to be careful of rivers ending in lakes, though. It does happen, of course, if a river heads towards a depression from which there's no outlet. Unless there's sufficient evaporation of the lake water, it will eventually spill over the lip somewhere and an exit river will form.

I notice that you have two of these, and that the northernmost is ever so close to another river system. I can buy the southern one existing for a while, but the northern one seems less likely to exist.


----------



## RedAngel

When I was living in the suburbs near Chicago we used to take our boat out on the Fox River and due to the glacial topography around the area the Fox was connected to multiple lakes that the river snaked through. The river could be mostly dry during the summer months and maintain a lake or spill over into the nearby river when there is wetter months.


----------



## Nomadica

That looks really good Noxius. Looks natural.


----------



## Noxius

elemtilas said:


> I would note to be careful of rivers ending in lakes, though. It does happen, of course, if a river heads towards a depression from which there's no outlet. Unless there's sufficient evaporation of the lake water, it will eventually spill over the lip somewhere and an exit river will form.
> 
> I notice that you have two of these, and that the northernmost is ever so close to another river system. I can buy the southern one existing for a while, but the northern one seems less likely to exist.



In my head, the south-eastern part of the island is pretty high and has cliffs instead of shores, so I thought it would be logical that the river found some lower point there and filled it up, while the evaporation prevents it from spilling over. 

I could make the lake in the north spill over and then connect with the river next to it. Would that be more realistic? 

Thank you all for your replies!


----------



## TheKillerBs

More likely, yes. More realistic? The set-up you have there is already perfectly realistic. You could have a salt lake in the south and then the northern one could drain into the neighbouring river system via an underground river.


----------



## RedAngel

IMO it is geographically intersting to leave it though I would add a touch of shading that shows a potential connection without having it actually connect that would show that at points in time it does connect.


----------



## Noxius

Thank you both! I'm happy that I got everything right, I'm a little perfectionist, so I looked up a lot about maps and geography (I even started with where the tectonic plates lie under this specific part of my world)

Shading and making the impression that it only connects in the rainy times of the year is a good iodea, I will try to do that.


----------



## elemtilas

TheKillerBs said:


> More likely, yes. More realistic? The set-up you have there is already perfectly realistic. You could have a salt lake in the south and then the northern one could drain into the neighbouring river system via an underground river.



This is true.

My point is that both the northern lake and the river exist close by in the same hilly region, and there doesn't appear to be any intervening highlands. Ergo, it seems like the lake ought to spill over towards the east (away from the higher hill lands).

The idea of a basin in the is entirely reasonable. Given that most of the island seems to be wooded, I suspect that the local climate is moist to wet --- not really ideal for sufficient evaporation to occur.


----------



## elemtilas

Noxius said:


> Shading and making the impression that it only connects in the rainy times of the year is a good iodea, I will try to do that.




Would love to compare the two versions!!


----------



## TheCrystallineEntity

My Songsphere cosmos unfortunately has no map, because the distances between planets are insane. I've made a small list of planets and realms, though:

Mythaven [ascended aspect = Omniad]
Oeuyia [ascended aspect = Incarnachant]
Where Realms--Somewhere, Nowhere, Everywhere, Anywhere, and Somewhere Else
The Alpha-Omega Dimension [also known as Wyrdness]


----------



## Iosmovaehar

Here is the continent of Voldenne, in the world of Io. :^)

Voldenne (continent W.I.P.) by Iosmovaehar on DeviantArt


----------



## elemtilas

Iosmovaehar said:


> Here is the continent of Voldenne, in the world of Io. :^)
> 
> Voldenne (continent W.I.P.) by Iosmovaehar on DeviantArt



Alright! Spill the beans! What's with Ardra VoÃ¾? A nice circular feature like that generally either means a whale of an asteroid strike or evidence of some ancient alien mining activity. Or perhaps some crank alien dude bent on galactic domination has tested his death ray on this planet!


Some of the rivers look a bit off, though: those two rivers over in LoraiÃ¾eeen seem to go nowhere; also the short branching rivers over in Aimuridiiu sÃ©em to arise in the Yaral Mountains and flow westwards. Rivers cÃ¡n split in the direction of flow, but it's extremely rare, and here you've got two that seem to split thrice. Also, they don't seem to flow into the sea. Like the more western rivers, they seem to end up nowhere. I'm just curious if there's a good reason for that behavior (that I may not be aware of), or are they just something of a sketch that's going to be worked on & edited later?

In any event, a nicely done map!


----------



## Iosmovaehar

*Thanks!*

Ardra VoÃ¾ (pronounced "Adra Voth" - which translates to "The Deep Forest" in the Angoseir language) is where the first creature to ever live in Io entered the world. None now know exactly how it entered Io, or for what reason, but clearly from deep crater left in the landscape, the event itself must have been catastrophic. The Ancient One, The First One: _The Watcher Who Wants Not to be Watched_ entered the world of Io long before any other life. The Watcher has since moved itself - far away from the prying eyes of civilization, now dwelling deep beneath the old bridge of Taav'n Diir ("Tayvin Dire"), within the bowels of the earth; in the Great Chasm - where it restlessly watches the rest of the world... and perhaps influences it from time to time. The Watcher can see all things in the world of Io. But, this does not make it all-knowing. It's all-seeing eyes can see but one thing at a time; it's vision does not extend to multiple places at once. So it sits lying in wait, vigilantly watching for any threat that could intrude upon it's solitude.

Once widespread across the continent of Voldenne, the towering Bellbulb Trees - whose great dangling flower bulbs hang down like chandeliers from viny tendrils that can stretch for tens, sometimes hundreds of feet - are the dominant mega-flora in the crater forest of Adra Voth. Bellbulbs can now be found in only two places across Io: the forest of Adra Voth being one of them. Among the creatures of Adra Voth live the Nydhar (literally "deer-people" in Angoseir), a nomadic race of cervitaurs (centaurs, but half-deer instead of half-horse) who hunt and gather within the crater forest.

The northern tip of Adra Voth - beyond the Bonewall - is where the great drake-like, flying sverinaen build their nests; and it is for the precious hatchlings within these nests that these flying behemoths hunt, and hunt often. Some sverinaen prefer marine prey, living life like lumbering pterosaurs barreling across the sky, skimming the water for fish. Yet others prefer to glide from tree to massive tree within the deep wooded glades of Adra Voth, hunting for any prey that they may find. The Nydhar fear the sverinaen more than anything else, and have over the years killed a handful. The defeat of a sverinaen is the greatest triumph that a tribe of Nydhar can achieve, and upon taking down the lumbering giant, it's meat is distributed among the tribe; and it's bones are carried to be added to The Bonewall, which the Nydhar have constructed over countless generations to separate their portion of Adra Voth from the nesting grounds of the sverinaen.

Thank you for noticing the issues with the rivers in Amuridiiu ("Ammeridia") - which I indented to be a fairly swampy area that is homeland of the Amerridian peoples, hence why the region is quite waterlogged. I will have to fix that. Geology is a huge point of ignorance of mine!


----------



## Mythopoet

I've been putting some work into my map. Ptolemy's map was my starting point, but I wanted to add some additional lands. I've only added a few labels so far though. The font for the larger land masses is a bit hard to read. It's supposed to be Greek-esque. The world name is Mettakhthon.


----------



## elemtilas

Mythopoet said:


> I've been putting some work into my map. Ptolemy's map was my starting point, but I wanted to add some additional lands. I've only added a few labels so far though. The font for the larger land masses is a bit hard to read. It's supposed to be Greek-esque. The world name is Mettakhthon.



Um. About the  "Greekesque" thing. How am I supposed to read that? Sugthra? Lwtisa? My opinion only, but it's terribly annoying! I would just suggest using the Greek values for the letters and leave it at that. Sufficiently ancient and mysterious without making people try to decipher what you mean by each letter. Also, the Greek alphabet has the built-in feature of _inherent Greekesquery_! You don't actually have to fake it!

Otherwise...love the ptolomean projection and the ptolomean shape of the continents. Hopefully we'll see more lands labelled and described soon!


----------



## Mythopoet

elemtilas said:


> Um. About the  "Greekesque" thing. How am I supposed to read that? Sugthra? Lwtisa? My opinion only, but it's terribly annoying! I would just suggest using the Greek values for the letters and leave it at that. Sufficiently ancient and mysterious without making people try to decipher what you mean by each letter. Also, the Greek alphabet has the built-in feature of _inherent Greekesquery_! You don't actually have to fake it!
> 
> Otherwise...love the ptolomean projection and the ptolomean shape of the continents. Hopefully we'll see more lands labelled and described soon!



lol I was just using this font for fun. Obviously in anything I publish I would make sure it is legible! But I happened to have this font on my computer and thought it looked cool. 

Anyway, the continents are Europa, Asia, Africa, Australis and Iapon (Japan). Names not final. I referenced a 16th century map of Japan, but drew it myself rather than outlining it directly (as I had with the Ptolemy) so it's different. And the Japan map was obviously not on the same scale as the Ptolemy so it ended up being huge. But I think I like that.


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## elemtilas

Mythopoet said:


> lol I was just using this font for fun. Obviously in anything I publish I would make sure it is legible! But I happened to have this font on my computer and thought it looked cool.



Oh, yeah, definitely looks cool!

I guess just a personal gripe that the Greek letters aren't being used with their own values, but the Latin letters are.



> Anyway, the continents are Europa, Asia, Africa, Australis and Iapon (Japan). Names not final. I referenced a 16th century map of Japan, but drew it myself rather than outlining it directly (as I had with the Ptolemy) so it's different. And the Japan map was obviously not on the same scale as the Ptolemy so it ended up being huge. But I think I like that.



No worries there!

Came out looking nice, in my opinion!


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## Malik

A new map for the hardcover release of Dragon's Trail. My wife made it with Campaign Cartographer, working off my previous map and notes.


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## elemtilas

Nice work, o unnamed cartographical artist!

I like especially the name "Ulorak". Nice sound to it!


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## Malik

elemtilas said:


> Nice work, o unnamed cartographical artist!
> 
> I like especially the name "Ulorak". Nice sound to it!



Thank you. The king, Ulo, seemed like the kind of guy who would name his fledgling realm after himself.


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## Drakevarg

"Ragoth Ur" seems a bit iffy. Literally one letter off from the name of the Big Bad of Morrowind (and by extension, the name of his citadel).

Edit: Oh, R*e*goth Ur. Slightly less iffy, but still.


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## Malik

Drakevarg said:


> "Ragoth Ur" seems a bit iffy. Literally one letter off from the name of the Big Bad of Morrowind (and by extension, the name of his citadel).
> 
> Edit: Oh, R*e*goth Ur. Slightly less iffy, but still.



1.) I had to look up what Morrowind was. 

2.) Pretty sure I came up with that name when any modern game designers short of Chris Roberts were still fudging their Huggies.


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## elemtilas

Malik said:


> Pretty sure I came up with that name when any modern game designers short of Chris Roberts were still fudging their Huggies.



:Owned:

That made my day! Sooner or later, just by dumb luck, someone's going to come up with a name that sounds a lot like a name someone already came up with. It's happened to me several times. And in both directions.


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## Drakevarg

Â¯\_(ツ)_/Â¯

Everybody has their own point of view on what's 'common knowledge,' I guess. I used to date someone who had never heard of Clint Eastwood.

To me, it was the kind of like reading a crime drama where one of the characters was named "Pilsen Fisk" because the author either predated or had never heard of the Kingpin.


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## TheKillerBs

I am resurrecting this thread. This is a map of (one of) my WIP's continent. I projected it to a "globe" with NASA's projector tool, linked by CupOfJoe
here.







The cross-hatched area is the not-so-evil empire at its largest extent.


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## Malik

The final version came out better than I expected. I'm contemplating selling these on my website.


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## pmmg

Dude, your computer screen looks broken...


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## Malik

That's my wallpaper. Keeps me humble. Gimme a sec; I'll take another one that's less distracting.

EDIT: It's up, now. Here's a low-res of the wall map.


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## pmmg

I was kidding Malik. It was a cool desktop and the map is awesome.


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