Story World Map

[torg]

Well this is my first serious attempt at doing a map. Thought I'd share what I have done so far with everyone and listen to any suggestion.

If anyone has any suggestion about a great way to represent swamp and grasslands that would be great. I have been finding that drawing the towns/castles to scatter around the my world to be very time consuming. The only place currently added is the capital, but the scan did not come through really well so I'll probably have to redraw it all over again.

Dismiss the names at the moment they are a work in progress. I want to put the 12 capitals names onto scrolls and the rest scattered around I think.

I have also been trying to create my own brushes where I could. The sea monsters are both slightly altered form of another bush I aquired and the same goes for the compass. I do think however that they turned out quite well. Now all I have to do is draw some ships to scatter around the place and my sea area will be all finished (maybe a couple of mermaids).

I'm doing this with Photoshop CS4. The water texture is drawn on using a mixture of soft lighting at about 24-27% opacity for both the shallow and deep water with a solid brown colour on the background. The land mass was then created using the lasso tool to delete out all major areas I didn't want and then I used the eraser to create the rivers. I don't know if it's the best way to do it but that's the way I have been doing it.

I have read some tutorials from the forum and have found them very useful.

Cheers
Torg