[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)
01-fantasy-map-base.jpg

Step 2:
Create drawn shoreline/waves utilizing stacked layers with strokes
02-fantasy-map-shorelines.jpg

Step 3:
Identify shallows around geographic features and softening border
03-fantasy-map-shallows.jpg

Step 4:
Begin adding biomes with high-contrast border, soft interior edge, and solid colors
04-fantasy-map-biomes-draft.jpg

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.

[randigpanzrall]

Hi Darren,

interesting work so far. The landmasses are quite familar even when they are presented upside down. Nevertheless I´m curious to see this developping

[Schwarzkreuz]

I would have shown more of the western parts. It looks a bit strange to cut it there, but the focus seems to be the ocean more than the landmass anyway.

[darren_kitlor]

Hi Darren,

interesting work so far. The landmasses are quite familar even when they are presented upside down. Nevertheless I´m curious to see this developping

Agree. I think reusing the same shoreline, despite merging it at different angles fundamentally gives it same-y look. I even reused the islands and shores to "cut" into the land mass, leading to negative space (lakes) looking identical to positive space islands. I'll have to tweak the landmasses more to make it more alien and less of a "hey -- this is just norway recycled a bunch" type look.

[Schwarzkreuz]

Agree. I think reusing the same shoreline, despite merging it at different angles fundamentally gives it same-y look. I even reused the islands and shores to "cut" into the land mass, leading to negative space (lakes) looking identical to positive space islands. I'll have to tweak the landmasses more to make it more alien and less of a "hey -- this is just norway recycled a bunch" type look.

I used England exclusively in my last WIP map, so I know what you mean, but I also redraw the lines with some editing.

[JonathanCR]

I like it, but surely that's Scotland, not Norway!