Show your maps! :)

Very cool map. ^_^ And, well, I've never been very good with maps... but I suppose I could try to pull out one or two of my old projects.

Or rather, I do have this one pretty awesome one... *ponders* I made this one with a combination of tools. First I used a program called Fractal Terrains (very awesome program, you should look into it if you really want to do some good map work) and randomly generated a world, then took a piece of that pre-made coastline and yoinked it into photoshop. This is the final result of my playing around:



The idea behind this image and the reason it has all the writing on it is because it was supposed to be the actual map that some characters in a RP found. So yeah... it was a bit silly.

What prog to draw the map? by hand or in paint?

How about complexity?

Personally, I'm not a fan of square continents with a big mountain in the middle, and no sense of geological reality (natural or fantastic).

How about a river or a lake? Often there's a wet area on one side of a mountain and a dry area on the other (since as the air is pushing upward, it cause the moisture in the air to condense and fall as rain; something like that anyway . . . I'm no weatherman). Perhaps one side of your area could be a desert. Just some thoughts.

and if you add rivers, remember gravity. Rivers go down, not up. So, if you have a river it usually can't end in the mountains.

sadron said:

colouring by Pain shop pro.

Click to expand...

Is it that hard to use?

Maps for my Xigara series

sadron said:

*stares and drops her jaw* O_O I mean whoa! That's awesome maps! *claps* Question, should I leave colouring off for my map?

Click to expand...

I prefer no coloring on maps (including when I see them in published works), but I think it's a personal thing. Sometimes the coloring gets in the way, but just as with writing, if the coloring adds rather than detracts from understanding the maps, then go ahead and use it. I personally like clean lines and what-not. I think I like getting my sense of the actual terrain from the narrative itself.

Couldn't avoid this thread Link to my map is below. Sorry that some of the text is small. Didn't want to export a 2048x2048 image. I made it originally for a D&D campaign I was playing with some friends and sort of stole the world for a new piece I'm working on.

http://www.asymonte.com/~mhughes/Writing/Hulith.png

Made it with Fractal Mapper. Started with the large landmasses and then expanded via each of the countries the campaign/story was taking place in. I only recently added more population centers.

sadron said:

If you have any, please show them. I can show mine first.

Click to expand...

ooooh, I just realized you didn't indicate whether this was a sci-fi or fantasy thread... So here's my current map:

Oooo... so many nice maps. ><* I wish I could have gotten mine to show up as the image and not just a link. Don't really have anywhere that I can upload it to directlink, though. -_-

Still... Beautiful maps! I love them! ^___^

This is one I'm working on now. It's an extremely large island, about twice the size of Texas, or five times the size of Great Britain. So far I've only done the physical geography. I haven't worked out the cities and such yet, although it's pretty obvious where the capital city will go.

I don't have a story yet, but it will be SF, probably a lost colony. I think the colonists decided to settle on this island to minimize their impact on the native ecology.



Yes, as a matter of fact, I have spent entirely too much time playing with this map. Your point is?

Wow... I am very impressed... See, I can't really do that sort of thing on my own. ^_^() Ah well.

Worked on this yestorday. Unfortunately I can't work the scanner, so it chopped the sides off of my map, but it still managed to save the important details. The only things missing are the roads leading away from my city.

The circles represent gates of entrance.


Shot at 2007-06-26

This is my world map (it's about 3.5 feet tall, so I couldn't fit the whole thing into one picture). I'm going to finish coloring it one of these days, I swear. Oh, and the thumbtacks are just holding it to the wall. They don't actually mean anything.

Uh, yeah, drawing it took a while.

That's a hell of a lot of work.

Not nearly as much work as writing the books.