Thread: Creating a map for my novel

Thanks for the suggestions guys!


Ravells: I'm going to probably be recoloring the entire map once I get the basic structure together. I'm colorblind, so I'm leaving color until the absolute last thing so that I can do that all under the guidance of you experienced non-colorblind mappers.

Would you mind sending me the hex code, HSV, or RGB values for the "fawn" color you mentioned


Oh, and those mountains were all made by Ramah, and then converted into brushes by Vhailor27. I want to make sure those two get all of the credit for them... I'm not nearly that talented.


Landorll: You and I are thinking along the same lines for those hills. I might make them a bit more sparse, but in very similar places.

I'll also probably play with some foothills near the mountains on both sides.


Oh hey Ramah, thanks for the layering suggestion on the mountains. I ended up using that and it was super easy for me. I don't know why I didn't think of it beofre . I just made a couple layers and made all the mountains different wacky colors so I knew which ones were on which layer. Then, the erasing was a breeze.

Hey Guys,

I've added the majority of my hills, forest, and marshes.

The big chunk in the middle of my map is fields/farmland. I've got some nice brushes for farmland, and I think if I throw in a some sparse tress that I'll get a nice field effect. Right now the area looks blank, but I don't want to clutter my map either.

Not sure how this will look though.

I am also considering creating a big chasm in the midst of the field area, but I am unsure how to create this effect and make it look like it blends in with the rest of the map.


Anyways, let me know what you all think and if you have any suggestions.

(As mentioned above, coloring will be the LAST step for me, as I will need lots of help with it... colorblind)

Next steps as I see them:

1. Finish up fields and make chasm
2. Tidy up all vegetation and land features
3. Mark settlements.
4. Map roads
5. Mark places of interest
6. Recolor everything and make it all prettier.
7. Labeling


As a side note, the style of my tree/marsh brushes don't seem to quite fit with my mountains and hills. Do you all see this as clearly as I do, or am I imagining things?

Nice lookin swamp there. Everything else looks good as well.

Originally Posted by FAHall

As a side note, the style of my tree/marsh brushes don't seem to quite fit with my mountains and hills. Do you all see this as clearly as I do, or am I imagining things?

Yeah. I think it's a matter of crispness. If you could slightly blur the forest icons to match the fuzziness of the mountains, it might mesh better. Actually, scratch that. What about putting a slight color layer under the forests? Just a pale gray undertone to kind of give the woods more body?

But that's a minor gripe. It's a wonderful map.

Looks great, my only little nitpick (and this is probably just me) is that the rivers seem very 'stiff and jagged' compared to the rest of the map.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!