New Member, With Map

[TheAnarchitect]

Greetings!

I've been lurking here about a year, scanning other people's work and reading tutorials. I'm a long-time GM who goes in for world building in a big way. I'm also an architectural draftsman, so I have some related professional skills. I've decided to become a forum participant because I'm working on a project and could use advice.

I am creating a map of a terraformed mars for use with the Numenera setting. I've done my homework on what that entails: I've figured the atmospheric pressure at various altitudes, temperature ranges over seasons, wind and water patterns, biome distribution, etc. I used the USGS mars map as my base to work from. I have a large number of hand-drawn maps with the data on it. What I'm trying to do is convert these maps to a clean digital format, suitable for publishing.

Where I'm getting stuck is representing biomes. I want something that will fit in with the "Heavy outline, colored fill" style I've got going, but is more visually representational than a colored blob labeled "Jungle." My photoshop abilities are pretty much limited to collage, but I'm absolutely willing to learn anything I need to in order to do this right. So I guess what I'm looking for is advice/tutorial suggestions for how to show my biomes, as well as general critique and advice on how to punch it up.

Attached is the scan of my hand-drawn map, and the current state of my Digital map.

[Chick]

Hi TheAnarchitect, welcome to the Guild.

I suggest you post the maps in the World/Regional Mapping Thread. More people will see it there who might be able to help.

Then go check the Tutorial section of the forum and start looking for tutorials on making forests, rivers, mountains, etc, with photoshop. You will find photoshop brushes in the Mapping Elements section of the forum that you can use with the tutorials.

Then start trying them out. Post what you get and people will help you with suggestions and critiques.

As a planetary geologist with a strong interest in Mars terraforming, I'm looking forward to seeing it finished.

[jbgibson]

Cool maps, even at an unfinished state; kudos for sticking maps right in your intro post!

For the biome indication, how about some representational symbology faded out to an opacity that makes it just a texture?