Thanks mate! Glad I could help. One day soon, perhaps, I will write a quick tutorial on how I make maps, and from experience, it takes a little while to develop a style that you are happy with. It took me the better part of 7 years to come to where I am now, although I am a rather recreational cartographer. Now that I have a full keyboard in front of me, here are a few more tips that I would have found rather useful when I was first starting.

Choice of paper is more important than you may think. There are plenty of options out there, everything from tea staining and drying regular copy paper to cardstock parchment paper. If you are going to dye your own, it is probably obvious but I'll say it anyway- dye it before you draw on it. What I have come to prefer is taking a 100% cotton paper, draw the map, and carefully seal it with an amber shellac. It produces a great aged parchment feel. Soon, however, I will be experimenting with real parchment!

Ink is another important lesson I learned late in the process. In the beginning, I used graphite and assorted coloured pencils. They were cheap and the effect was rather amateur (think 7 year old). For the better part of 10 years, I drew with graphite exclusively, and although I had a decent control over detail and shading, the contrast was lacking. Only in the past year or so have I started using india ink pigma-micron pens (and more recently, quill and india ink). It is a permanent, archival ink that is nice and dark. The varying fineness of the felt tipped pens is great. I start with pencil for the general outlines and move onto the ink once I am happy with everything. On top of that, the shellac seals in the character.

Everything else is really just patience and experimentation. I was largely influenced by the maps of my favourite books in my youth (think Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Treasure Island, ...) and adapted from there. I'm excited to see what you draw!

JSP