Making water

[SZchecs]

Hey guys! I'm SZchecs (weird name lol). I've made this map (it's my first one) and I decided to make some weird shaped islands, looked good at start but then the hard part came... WATER! I've tried soo many different styles and nothing worked (using Photoshop CC 2015, not sure why XD).

This is the map so far. I'm going for a paper style.



This is my first time drawing a map and using Photoshop. Yeah, I'm a newb ;--;
Any help is appreciated! Thanks! ^_^

[Greg]

I'm afraid I can't help you with using photshop as it's not my area, but I'd try changing around with the land colours a bit and then see what works there. Perhaps desaturating the blue a bit will work, but your land looks a little bland at the moment. Also, that river/divide on the largest landmass looks very unnatural. If it's a river, it has no sources and flows from ocean to ocean, and if it's a sea then it seems to river-shaped. Sorry I can't be of more help. Keep checking out the maps in the cartographer's choice section and perhaps you'll see something that you like the style of that you can use as inspiration for your own colouring.

[waldronate]

It looks like you're using a drop shadow on the land to try to get shading. I don't recommend this because a drop shadow is intended to give the impression that one element is floating above another, which is not how land and water interact. You might try a dark outer glow instead of the drop shadow. Classic maps tended to be made in one of two ways depending on age: hand-drawn with ink to make the outlines and then hand-painting to add color or (later) woodcut to make the outlines using a printing press and then hand-painting to add color. For maps without the hand-painting for coloring, it was common to use hatching or other solid-line techniques to impart apparent shading. There are many examples of this effect in images here at the guild (search for "woodcut" or "water lines").

[johnvanvliet]

add a gradient highlight