First Fantasy Cartography

[GreatWhiteNorth]

Hello all,

Yes, it's another Westeros map. First time posting here, and in fact my first go-round at fantasy cartography in general. I've had quite a bit of training as a cartographer in an academic setting, but this is my first digital map of a fictional place, so I decided to go with something familiar. Additionally, this is my first use of photoshop, so any comment/tips/suggestions would be appreciated. Let me know what you think!

Westeros2 LMQ.jpg

[Falconius]

I like this style a lot, it's very clean and nostalgic. Unfortunately I find the font you used in Winterfell and the other place labels kind of obscures itself when it's reduced in size or maybe outlined like it is in the forest. I have a feeling that font only really works well at a certain larger size. That said it works well in all caps for the cities.

I also appreciate that you had all the towers in the wall. What I find particularly interesting about the RR Martin maps is how much they are carried by the story, since they in and of themselves are very unremarkable and kind of clunky. As opposed to book maps which help carry the story in some way. In other words readers be perfectly happy without the Martin maps because the story is soo strong, but where would The Hobbit be without its map? Then again the Hobbit was a story realy constructed completely around a map, but it's interesting to see how it can be central to the book where the book would be much less without it, or really only matter because the book makes one care about it, as in Martin's case.

[Bogie]

Nice Map, Welcome to the Guild GreatWhiteNorth.

[Riggs802]

I really like this style! That makes me think about "Valdia" map from Auth.
I like the grainy / sandstone texture to it and the greenish color of the sea.
Around the coast it's too dark in my taste but it's a style.

Some of the critics to his map could actually be applied here such as "mountain elevation".
check here : Auth WIP from cartographer's guild

It's the exact style I can't do and I'm trying to grasp, do you have some resources to share, please? some of your process or external links.
Thanks!

Well done, I can't wait to see te next step.

[GreatWhiteNorth]

Thanks Riggs,

Believe it or not, I sort of fell in love a finished version of "Valcia: Regional Fantasy Map" and applied that style to my map. That means, unfortunately, I don't have any external links to share. Essentially what I did was just apply the sandstone texture to the various layers I used (background colors and oceans were painted in photoshop, vector layers like text, cities, roads, etc were made in Illustrator and brought over). Mountains were hand drawn using some brushes I created in Illustrator as described by the maker of "Valcia" on a different forum, and they took the most time by far. Being sort of new to Photoshop, I still don't have a solid grasp of highlighting/adding elevation type indicators to the mountains by hand.