Thanks for the welcome and the compliments, I'll head over there when I have more time. I've always been interested in mapping so I consider these forums a nice find.

The contrast in style is because one is the older (the atlas-style as you described) and the other is the style I'd like to remake it in. As you can see I still need to finish the roads, mark the cities, and then find a way to create the hilly region. Then I am just going to paint a really soft and low-opacity green and yellow and brown throughout the map in the open areas, then finish it off with lables.

I don't really like the mountains, but I couldn't find or think of a way to make them more art-like. I just made a custom brush with a little jitter to it because its the most hand-drawn style I was able to find. In addition, I don't like the lack of detail, because in the original map I was able to show the varying degrees of height and density in the mountain ranges, though I'm not too worried about this, I'd like to at least have a better transition from mountain to normal ground. I'm still looking for a better method...

I've been using a heavy influence from the Zombie Nirvana tutorials, so that's where the tree pattern came from.

That's why I'm here asking for help . By the way I've only had PS for the last week, and this is my first time trying the more hand-painted style. Any help is appreciated