okay, so I've been browsing maps here for a bit and I'm a little jelous of the talent I'm seeing. I have questions. (I'll likely have a lot over the next few months.) I'm getting ready to put together a campaign setting for D&D 4e, and I really want to put something 'professional looking' together. I could go with my usual collection of squiggly line blob continents and islands, but they never seem to mesh and create a really beleivable big picture with island chains that look natural and so on.

I'm looking for tutorials, tips, etc..


The Long Story
I've got a little skill with a pencil from my "I'm going to be a comic book artist" teen years and I have Adobe CS1 and an intuous platinum digitizer (and no real clue how to use either). My intention is to set up untextureed/uncolored outlines for my land masses, so that I can then use them for a more hand drawn looking map as well as a more textured and realistic one at some point. That make any sense?

I'm actually going to build the setting down-up, starting from a 500x500 mile area... so I don't plan to really flesh out the rest right now but I want to try to get some basics in place so that expansion might be easier later.