Hello everyone.

As i mentioned in my Introduction Post I'm attempting to make a map of the continent of Valorn. This continent is the main playing area for an online RPG called The Dark Grimoire. The game map I'm basing this on is here:

http://www.darkgrimoire.com/storyval.php

Obviously i can't deviate from this too much. The idea is two fold, i want to complete a map in a similar style to Torstans Map of Dolmen Isle. Secondly the map will be cut up into about eight segments so they can be 'given out' in game to players to help them find there way in the game world.

The first thing i did was make a quick map in CC3 to get the positions of the mountains, hills, rivers and settlements in place at a scale so the maps would be correct when cropped into sections:



I then used this as a background layer in Fireworks and began to create the coastline and rivers using a line tool and reshaping it to get nice (hopefully) curves. I used the same technique for the different types of paths and then using a drawing tablet i drew the mountains using some from a previous map. The trees where added next until i was left with progress so far:



The next stage is to add hills which is something I'm struggling with. Any comment about the map would be nice along with any tips for shading hills/mountains and getting the conifer forest in the North East corner to look more realistic.

Thank you for looking.

Korba