[WIP] Untitled Regional Fantasy Map - Vector, Muted, Full Color Palette, Digital

[darren_kitlor]

Untitled Regional Fantasy Map - Vector, Muted, Full Color Palette, Digital

Design Constraints

• Muted, pastel color palette (less saturated, brighter colors)
• High Text Legibility / Contrast (more saturated, darker colors)
• Focus on geographic features rather than political/economic ones (borders, roads, etc.)
• Bridge gap between hand-drawn styles and full vector digital using fewest hand-drawn elements.

Tools

• Affinity Designer on Windows and iOS
• Procreate on iOS

References
Forgotten Realms 3rd Edition Faerun Map (by Robert Lazzaretti, et al.)
Previous attempt at Abeir-Toril from various D&D Editions - unfinished and veered too much into realism/satellite-style territory
Wonderful tutorial by Sarah Bell of Petrichor
US National Park Service Uniguide and Style Guides

Step 1:
Outline landmass using real-world coastlines and adding/subtracting/reshaping islands to create water features (Western Norway and Northwest United States used)


Step 2:
Create drawn shoreline/waves utilizing stacked layers with strokes


Step 3:
Identify shallows around geographic features and softening border


Step 4:
Begin adding biomes with high-contrast border, soft interior edge, and solid colors


It's a work in-progress but I'm happy to have only an hour down so far and the results being both aesthetically pleasing and providing a clear path forward. I had to go back and tweak the shoreline border stack to the desired thickness and "whitespace" soft blue between strokes. The end goal is a 300 DPI 33"x44" high-quality map, suitable for table use or framing.