My First Map! (Major WIP)

[Shmak]

Hi guys, New here... This is my first attempt at a map for a D&D campaign I'm working on. I've made it using Phooshop CS5. I'm fairly decent with PS ( Half of my job RL is designing adverts) but not an expert by any means. Never attempted this before so i know , it's crap, but I've got to start somewhere. Any and All suggestions, criticism, rants and trolls are welcome.

First Map.jpg

[Cuin]

It's good for one to know they have room to improve, but never call your work crap. All creations are of value.

I would suggest less saturation on the blue in the ocean to get a more subtle look (Ocean water isn't that blue and if you look at old maps oceans are just the color of the paper plus or minus waves drawn). The large river at the east of the continent looks like it isn't actually a river because it is connected to the ocean on both sides. If it is not a river I suggest cutting or erasing the land area rather than applying a blue brush stroke over the land so that the drop shadow and stroke(?) effects on the continent layer is seen on the borders of the 'river'.

I think the outline is very good and I like the shading on the mountains. Keep it up

[madcowchef]

Howdy. The number one suggestion I have for getting started and learning how to apply those PS skills to map making specifically is find a couple of the tutorials you like the end results of and give those a twirl. With your background you'll pick it up fast and surprise yourself with how quick you get results. For this map, I'm with Cuin, ease up on the blue a bit. Your mountains don't seem to run in any sort of ridges or lines and dive off suddenly at ocean edge.

[Shmak]

Thanks for the input! I'll look into those madcow... btw, I stole a bunch of your tiles for battlemaps lol.. Epic work dude, they're amazing.

[madcowchef]

Great that people are using them. 80% of what I learned to make those tiles is from modifying, discovering ideas from, or completely re-purposing techniques I've learned from the tutorials here, so you can thank all the wonderful tutorial makers here for those.