Area map for upcoming adventure. WIP comments/ideas welcome

[terrainmonkey]

hey folks

so i'm designing this new town map, and area surrounding. it will be several weeks before the PCs in my game get to this point so i have time to fix it and make it better looking.

i'm using coreldraw 12 if that helps, but i find that some of the same ideas work from photoshop, just different terms. anyway, i'm looking for some ideas on what to do. in the valley there will be orchards, small copses of trees, and farmland. this is the problem i'm having, getting a good look. also, the elevations are not done. i'm still playing with some ideas for bending but it hasn't come out right so i'm open for ideas. there will also be larger trees on the ridges. but none of note near the castle.
http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...unsborough.jpg

[RPMiller]

Let's see. Since you are using a graphics program I would start by doing a gradient for the hills using the three and four colors that you already have. I assume that Corel can do multi color gradients since PS can.

I would do clumps of trees in the open areas and then a few copse along the roads to make it interesting and give the players something to think about. "What if there are bandits waiting in those trees?"

I would definitely smooth out the roads using a spline. Whether intentionally built or naturally made from traffic a 'highway' isn't typically going to have sharp turns in it.

The texturing in the city area should probably be balanced with some sort of texturing in the surrounding area. A texture that represents the 'feel' of the terrain rather than the type. The type would be better represented with symbols of some sort such as trees as bushes.

That's all I've got in the way of suggestions to start.

[ravells]

My suggestion is that you might want to desaturate the colours a bit, they're a little garish.

ravs