Hi all

I have always wanted to make a handdrawn sketchlike map, but the trouble is, I am relatively sucky at drawing. But after reading ironmetal250's excellent step by step guide to handdrawing mountainsP, I decided to give it a go. Mountains and trees are lifted more or less from ironmetal250 (although drawn by myself), but the rest is all me. And the roads, rivers and labels are done in Inkscape.

Even though the individual elements are somewhat artisticly dodgy (childishly clumsy, some would say), the overall impression is pretty good. The hardest thing was the town-markers (the tiny buildings). Looking at models on the internet (that is images of the kind of building I wanted to draw) helped a lot.

The good thing, is that now, when I know the technique, I should be able to make a map like this in a very short time, and not a whole saturday, when I should have been cleaning the house and working on actual GM'ing.

So, what do you guys think? Any advice on making it better?

I plan to maybe do these things at a later time:
  • Draw small bridges for where roads crosses rivers.
  • Touch up some of the lines in the individual elements - especially the trees and the farmhouse has been scaled down too much, I think.
  • Redo the coastlines, which are sloppily done.
  • If I'm feeling particularily creative, I will draw a/some ship(s) for the sea, and some boats for the lake.


Click image for larger version. 

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Oh, also, where the drawing is all me, the geography is from my Forgotten Realms(TM) Campaign setting from Wizards of the Coast.