Hi!

First time poster, long time lurker. Anyhow.

I'm currently trying out a more ambitious plan regarding world-building and was very pleasantly surprised by the look of Pixie's map (from this thread: http://www.cartographersguild.com/re...ke-planet.html).

So I have been trying it out on a map I sketched a while ago of a North America-sized continent, and the results are quite good.

Click image for larger version.  Name: Ö vers 2.png  Views: 134  Size: 944.5 KB  ID: 65184 Click image for larger version.  Name: Ö med gränser.png  Views: 134  Size: 687.5 KB  ID: 65185

- Country/Nation border = bold black line
- State/tribe border belonging to the same country/nation = white dashed line
- State/tribe border not belonging to the same/country, but more the same culture = black dashed line
- Diagonal red lined areas = Unclaimed territories

As it stands, it gives me quite natural borders between the different countries/nations/cultures. Do note, however, that this map is entirely topographical, because this will help me with my next step: namely deciding biotopes.

I'm using Gimp and here is where I'm having problems. Do any of you have any tips on how I should represent deserts, forests, plains snow-capped mountain tops etc.?
I'm thinking I will try to make the map black-and-white and overlay it with different colored textures to create these biotopes. What do you think?

Best regards and thanks in advance!

(I will update this thread continous as the work goes along)