Topographical Maps...maps in general

[Miskatonic]

One thing I struggle with is creating maps, especially with topographical features that are above the stick figure level of creativity.

If anybody can offer some tips on how they go about making their world maps it would be greatly appreciated.

I'll try and post the maps I've done for my current project ASAP.

I have the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription so PS CS6 is something I'd be interested in using.

 

[Miskatonic]

Here's the world map.

 

[Miskatonic]

And here's the four kingdoms.

 

[ThinkerX]

With political maps, you don't need to include topographic features.

That said, the distance between degrees is considerably smaller at higher latitudes than in the equatorial regions. Therefor, if your world has an equatorial circumference of 24,000 miles, then at latitude +45 (or -45) that circumference would 12,000 miles. If you did not allow for this, then the 'four kingdoms' continent is far smaller than it appears.

I use MS Paint for my maps; I get around this problem by creating a grid first, dividing the world into longitudinal sections (four for the main world) that run from latitude +50 (give or take) down to around -15 or 20. Lots of counting using the text function, with little plus signs at 10 degrees longitudinal sections. There is still some distortion - there always is when mapping a spherical surface onto a flat sheet - but the distances are much truer. THEN I draw the map proper.

The second world has a unique geography that makes a world map proper almost pointless, so I make do with a multitude of interconnected regional maps, each to the same scale.

For interior details apart from coastlines and rivers, I use text symbols, sometimes accompanied by colored backgrounds (I date from the era when 90% of all fantasy maps boasted just one or two colors). Symbols:

# City or Town

*** Forest

^^^ Mountains

-"- Swamp

: Point of interest (ruin, fort, remote temple or some such)

I don't include roads at the world map level. At the regional level, I use fine red lines, solid for major well maintained highways, dashed lines for important secondary routes, caravan tracks, and the like.


I would suggest splitting your current world map into three longitudinal sections, the first including the 'four kingdoms' continent and upper portion of the southern landmass (let people wonder), the middle one focusing on the large islands and upper portion of the south central continent, along with the westernmost reaches of the eastern land mass. Third section would include the bulk of the eastern continent. Looks like you have a substantial ocean between this landmass and the 'four kingdoms' continent, so maybe another section there. You might have to omit the northernmost island from the 'four kingdoms' section.

 

[Miskatonic]

That's a great idea to use longitudinal markings to get a better idea of climate, terrain, etc.

I'll give it a try!

 

[CupofJoe]

If you want to have fun [and maybe make more realistic maps], have a look at G. Protector from NASA GISS. It lets you map your flat map on to different map projections. It has helped me think more globally when I'm planning.

Here is the list of projections you can play with, there area few...

Adams Orthembadic
Airy
Aitoff
Aitoff-Wagner
Albers Equal-Area Conic
Apian I
American Polyconic
American Polyconic (Global)
Apian II
Armadillo
Atlantis
Azimuthal Equal-Area
Azimuthal Equal-Area (Two-Hemisphere)
Azimuthal Equidistant
Azimuthal Equidistant (Two-Hemisphere)

Babinet
Bacon Globular
Baker Dinomic
Bartholomew
Bartholomew's Nordic
Behrmann
Boggs Eumorphic
Bonne
Braun Perspective
Braun Stereographic
Briesemeister
Breusing Geometric
Breusing Geometric (Two-Hemisphere)
Breusing Harmonic
Breusing Harmonic (Two-Hemisphere)
Bromley
BSE Modified Polyconic

Canters
Canters Polyconic 1989 f7
Canters Polyconic 1989 f8
Canters Polyconic 1989 f9
Canters Pseudocylindric 2002 f5.18
Canters Pseudocylindric 2002 f5.19
Canters Pseudocylindric 2002 f5.20
Canters Pseudocylindric 2002 f5.23
Cassini
Cassini-Soldner
Cordiform
Craster Parabolic
Cylindrical Equal-Area
Cylindrical Equidistant

Denoyer Semi-Elliptical

Eckert III
Eckert IV
Eckert V
Eckert VI
Eckert-Greifendorff
Equidistant Conic
Equirectangular
Equirectangular Oblique
Érdi-Krausz

Fahey
Fairgrieve
Foucaut
Fournier Globular I

Gall Isographic
Gall Orthographic
Gall Stereographic
Gall-Peters
Ginzburg IV.
Ginzburg V
Ginzburg VI
Ginzburg VIII
Ginzburg IX
Ginzburg 1966
Goode Homolosine
Gott Equal-Area Elliptical
Gott-Mugnolo Azimuthal
Gott-Mugnolo Azimuthal (Two-Hemisphere)
Gnomonic
Gnomonic Cubed Sphere
Gringorten
GS50

Hammer
Hammer Oblique
Hammer-Aitoff
Hammer-Wagner
Hill Eucyclic
Hölzel
Homalographic
Homolographic.

Kavraisky V
Kavraisky VI:
Kavraisky VII

Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area
Lambert Conformal Conic
Lambert Cylindrical Equal-Area
Larrivée

Maurer SNo. 173
Mayr
McBryde P3
McBryde Q3
McBryde S2
McBryde S3
McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Parabolic
McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Quartic
McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Sinusoidal
McBryde-Thomas Sine #1
Mercator
Miller Cylindric
Miller Oblated Stereographic
Modified Gall
Mollweide
Mollweide Oblique:

Natural Earth
Nell.
Nell-Hammer
Nordic

Ordinary Polyconic
Ortelius Oval
Orthographic
Orthographic (Two-Hemisphere)
Orthophanic
Oxford Atlas

Parabolic
Pavlov
Peters
Plate Carrée
Polyconic
PutniņÅ¡ P1,2,3,4,5,6

Quartic-Authalic

Raisz Armadillo
Raisz Half Ellipsoidal
Rectangular Polyconic
Robinson

Siemon II
Siemon III
Sanson-Flamsteed
Sinusoidal
Snyder GS50
Stereographic
Stereographic (Two-Hemisphere)
Strebe Equal-Area: Polyconic, equal-area.

Times Atlas
Tobler G1
Transverse Mercator (Sphere)
TsNIIGAiK Modified Polyconic
TsNIIGAiK Pseudocylindric

Urmayev Sinusoidal

Van Der Grinten I
Vertical Perspective

Wagner I
Wagner II
Wagner III
Wagner IV
Wagner V
Wagner VI
Wagner VII
Wagner VIII
Wagner IX
War Office
Werenskiold I
Werenskiold II
Werenskiold III
Werner II
Winkel I
Winkel II
Winkel Tripel

 

[Miskatonic]

That's a lot to work with!

 

[CupofJoe]

That's a lot to work with!

I know!
Procrastination heaven!!!!!!

 

[K.S. Crooks]

For my novel series I used donjon; Fractal World Generator

It is a wonderful tool and the map you create can be saved to your computer and opened in Photoshop to modify it as you like. Here is a small sample of my map

. The full world can be seen at Galyndor Interactive Map - K.S. CrooksK.S. Crooks

 

[Miskatonic]

That looks amazing! Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[Miskatonic]

I'm currently having a map commissioned by one of the members at Cartographer's Guild. Once It's completed I'll post it here. So far I'm really liking it as well as working with the artist.

 

[KindredQuill]

Wow, these maps are intense! I usually just scribble down approximate locations on a piece scratch of paper and make copious notes about the location's character and traits on an Excel spreadsheet later. I'll seriously have to consider making use of some of these resources in future.

 

[Miskatonic]

There are some really talented folks out there that make amazing maps. They certainly aren't cheap but as an accompaniment to a published book, they are worth every penny.

 

[M P Goodwin]

So, just to be clear...if I have a map I could use G. Protector and overlay my work onto a global version that they provide to give more topography and detail, is that the idea? I do a lot of cartography so anything that helps achieve the right look and feel is got to be worth a try. All my work is currently hand drawn and then edited for texture etc on Photoshop CS6.

 

[Bruce McKnight]

I'm a big fan of using GIMP because it's free and there are great tutorials all over YouTube (but mostly because it's free).

It has most of the capabilities of PhotoShop and there is a little learning curve, but YouTube makes it go quick. The layers feature is great. I use it to write all sort of world notes. I'll put foods and resources and exports all on different layers, but I can toggle them off when I just want to see the map. Very convenient for remembering what is actually in the world, but still leaves a usable map. I also put transparent colors in a layer for when I want to view it like a political map and I can toggle it off to just see terrain.

You can even start with the fractal world generator the Crooks mentioned and then build out more detail in GIMP.

Looking forward to seeing what you get on commission - good luck!