Greetings from Caelo

[Caelo]

Hey everyone! I'm a college student in the US with no real experience with map making or photoshop really except for my first map here. I have always loved maps and I've been inspired by this site to create my first map for a dnd campaign I'm in. I posted it in the finished maps here.

I can't wait to get started on another project!

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Caelo! Congrats on completing your first map. Are the hand drawn elements your own? One thing worth pointing out is that some of the elements (e.g. the hills and mountains) appear quite fuzzy, especially in contrast to other elements, such as the town icons. Another minor point is that to my eye the digital effects you've used in this map, particularly Bevel & Emboss, do not appear to me to be well suited to the otherwise hand-drawn feel of the map. I think the overall presentation would be stronger if you omitted these. At any rate, nice to meet you and look forward to seeing more of your work in the days ahead.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Jalyha]

And here I was with my untrained eye, thinking it was perfect.

I think the fuzzy-ness may be that you added layers and effects to the land, and then just placed your symbols/writing over the top of it?

I'm trying to find out how to make that sort of thing blend in too

And I've just learned something else, because I've also been using bevel and emboss quite liberally... perhaps all new mappers tend to that?

Anyway, it's way better than anything I could have ever done! Congrats, and welcome!

[- Max -]

I think the fuzzyness came from brushes that are scaled up, which always make them blurry.

[Caelo]

Thanks everyone!
The hand drawn elements I've credited to their respective owners in my finished map post here. As for the fuzziness, - Max - is right, the brushes would get blurry when I scaled them up and haven't been able to resolve that. I guess I'd have to scale everything else down instead of scaling the brushes up. Something to work on for my next map I suppose!