It would help if you had an example of the "style" you were shooting for....
As for advice, keep your GREAT sense of humor and enthusiasm in the forefront of your process.
Good luck... we are watching
The goal of this project is as mentioned here. More specifically I aim to create a world with national, internal and personal strive. A world as alive as good sushi the day before you eat it. A world map of Lyr, at first. Then, in detail, of all it's nations and places of note. Forged through history and following it's future
That is, if I don't get bored whilst trying to do this.
Word of Warning (WoW): I can't draw. Advice is appreciated.
Step 1: I created some clouds, posterised the image and cut out whatever shapes I wanted to use as small and large land masses.
Step 2: I made a contour out of the solid bodies.
Step 3: I smudged colour where-ever I wanted hills, mountains or forest.
Step 4: Have a friend tell me I draw like a 3-year-old.
Step 5: Create moutains, hills, rivers, towns and nations.
http://i.imgur.com/xMYbi6K.jpg (warning: large)
I'm planning on keeping it all in black and white for now and on creating more detailed maps for various regions once I am done with the map of at least these two continents.
As I'm a newb to this, all advice, constructive criticism, and even scepticism pertaining to the reality of my being are welcome.
It would help if you had an example of the "style" you were shooting for....
As for advice, keep your GREAT sense of humor and enthusiasm in the forefront of your process.
Good luck... we are watching
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Albert Einstein
While I cannot comment on the reality of your being as I reside on a plane consisting of soggy french fries and giant snails covered in chipolte barbecue sauce.... This is a fine start. It's an ambitious project and don't worry about getting bored you can always come back to it.
I am the breath of Dragons...The Song of Mountains...The Stories of Rivers....The Heart of Cities.... I am A Cartographer....
Finished Maps
Kingdom Of Shendenflar Campaign Setting (WIP)
Everything I post is free for use and redistribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 licence, except where noted otherwise in the thread.
I don't really have an example as such. I merely remembered seeing some maps drawn with the landscape being indicated by rather simplistic icons and thought that that would be an easy enough thing to start with as a noob
The goal is to create the worldmap with these simple icons, whilst still showing the general outline of the mountain ranges and valleys etc. Once I've done that I will take each region/nation and some surrounding area and recreate these in more detail. I'm not entirely sure whether I should go with a satellite view with realistic mountains - I imagine that being rather difficult (the chances being that I'll throw my mouse at my monitor) - or simply making the icons more 'complex'.
Examples:
http://imgur.com/dtpOc0G.png
http://imgur.com/22hQAaO.png
UPDATE: Yeah... I got bored and was too lazy to continue the map today. So... Instead I present you "The Red Mountains - North of Dirdam at Sunset" Yeah... sunset is in the east.
Last edited by Hal9000; 05-28-2013 at 10:17 AM.