My first ever map - for a story...

[Jalyha]

I like your second - i mean *first - map. What software are you using?

Thanks!!! I was worried it wasn't good enough to post yet, but everyone seems very understanding here.

For the blobby thing I only had the paint program that comes with windows, I got Gimp to do the map.

I guess maybe I should say what I did, in case people want to help

I used a parchment maker script that was posted on here, and then added/deleted random effects till I liked it. After that, I drew outlines around my blobs on another layer, then the "coastline" tutorials to rough them up on another layer. Then I deleted all but the parchment and the final shapes. I bucket-filled the land areas, and then selected/cut them out to show the parchment. I put the "Fibers" pattern on a layer under the parchment and merged everything.

I really liked it like that, but thought it needed more detail:



So I selected the land and copied it to a layer under the first layer and played with different filters and patterns until the land looked right (I embossed it but I forget what else I'd done ) Then I invert the selection and did the same for the water.

I just layered colors on top and played with opacity until it looked vaguely land/water-like.

For the border, I made bigger parchment, duplicated it, and pasted my map in the middle. I drew a path around the map, filled it with a pattern, and set the opacity for the top parchment so that it would show through a bit.

I'm sure there are better/easier ways, but it's way better than anything I thought I could do, so I'm happy.



Now I just need to figure out where to put these trees/rivers...