Nice start - welcome to the Guild! Feels odd to be greeting as a newbie someone who's been here longer than I have :-). May your subsequent posts come at less than a 5-year period ....
Well, hello.
I've been lurking around for some time (a couple of years actually) and have finally decided to uploads something I'm working on. I started playing RPG back in the eighties and quite enjoyed drawing maps, first massive dungeons, but later I got into world building and did some quite nice geographical maps (if I do say so myself). Unfortunately none of them exist any longer, as they were the unfortunate victims of a moving clean-up along the way. I stopped playing RPG in the mid-nineties and stopped mapping at the same time, but within the last couple of years I have wanted to get back into the hobby. The recent release of D&D 5th has pushed me into getting started again and I have found some buddies to play with. Fortunately this means that I have a reason to make maps again as I prefer making my own campaign rather than using pre-made ones.
To get started I have browsed the forum a lot lately, looking for ideas and styles. I have a pretty good idea of what I want my maps to look like, so it seems to be a question of finding bits and pieces among the many fantastic tutorials here, as well as stealing ideas left and right from the beautiful maps made by the forum members. While I've started my world building with a small town, I decided to start my mapping at a regional scale instead of a town map. I still haven't quite figured the best look for the later, so I'm putting it off a bit.
Below you can see what I have so far. There is still a long way to go, but it is nice to be at it again.
Braylon-WIP.jpg
Nice start - welcome to the Guild! Feels odd to be greeting as a newbie someone who's been here longer than I have :-). May your subsequent posts come at less than a 5-year period ....
Welcome back :3
That's quite a nice parchment texture, I have to say.
What program are you using?
Thanks for the welcome and yes, it does seem a bit weird to be a newbie after five years (hadn'r realized it had been that long).
The parchment is one I have found here on Cartographers', but I since I don't remember the original poster and can give proper credit, I intend to make my own version of it before I'm done. For now it is just a placeholder to check if it suits my needs.
Everything on the map was made in Photoshop as that is what I know how to use (somewhat).
I've gotten a bit further along on my map. I've added some color, changed the texture/background to one I've made myself and experimented a bit with rivers. I am not sure if they are too extensive and detailed, but I guess I will find out, when I've added some mountains, hills, and forest. I also added some roads and city/town symbols. The latter will probably be changed a bit, to reflect the kind of town or city they represent. I'm thinking square for cities and round for towns and with or without ring for fortifications (the ones on this map would then be fortified towns).
Braylon-WIP-02.jpg
Very promising.
I like the new texture and the overall colouration... though you might want to tone down the white parts a little bit.
The rivers are quite nice. On most old maps, rivers feature very prominently and I think most cartographers here don't show enough of the river systems that should exist on their maps.
There is just one thing that I don't think fits right now: (though you might have a reason and an explanation in your own world): you have two rivers comming from the region of "The Goblin Flatlands", but rivers usually originate in higher, hill or mountain ground.
I am thinking the same thing myself :-)
The Westfells mountain range is intended to end where the western river has most of its sources (the range will basically go from the right edge of the map in a more or less vertical line to the eastern coast), so that is where the water comes from, although I might have to extend the river a bit more into the mountain range. I was thinking that while it is a plain it would also have a few higher areas and small hills, which would be the source of some water. I will probably move it all around a little when I have drawn in hills and mountains.
Thanks for your input.
I have begun adding a few hills and mountains. I think this way of doing them suits what I want, but I guess it will be a bit clearer, when I get a bit further.
Braylon-WIP-03.jpg