You may not like it, but I tried something in this map that I liked a bit for this style of map.
I like the way you did the bogs in your Abred map... but I think I found what bothered me about them in this particular map: you use exactly the same way for the bog-vegetation that you use for the forests. Thus they seem to be of equal height on the map... and together this looks like your bogs are filled with huge trees.
Maybe you could adjust the drop shadow (or whatever you used to make this 3D effect) on either the bogs or the forests?
You may not like it, but I tried something in this map that I liked a bit for this style of map.
My Finished Maps
Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
My Tutorials:
Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
----------------------------------------------------------
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Similar to RobA's search on "aerial bog" I found some slightly different pictures when I did aerial swamp.
I am having a similar issue myself so I was glad to find this thread!
wisemoon
This and all other posts, including image or document files created by me that are linked in a post, are copyright Megan L. Wiseman, in the current year. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License unless otherwise stated in the post.
Please visit my blog - cartography, popular culture, and my art/design journal. Here are my finished maps!
I also did a Google search on "aerial marsh"...march, bog, and swamp are all slightly different if you look them up in Wikipedia, but I am finding that the aerial photos look very similar on all those searches. Then again, within each search term, there are photos with very different looks, and they come from very different climate areas--I found one from Siberia! I'm sure there must be differences between a swamp in Siberia and a swamp in Africa, for instance. I'm just not sure if that would show up visually or not.
wisemoon
This and all other posts, including image or document files created by me that are linked in a post, are copyright Megan L. Wiseman, in the current year. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License unless otherwise stated in the post.
Please visit my blog - cartography, popular culture, and my art/design journal. Here are my finished maps!
Sheesh, I was about to post this exact thread and was beaten to it. Psychic! Everyone else's attempts are so inspiring that I'm going to have another attempt at a quick and dirty marshland. If I manage to come up with something remotely appealing (er... unappealing? It's a marsh) then I'll totally copy my steps here.