Demeria - City of Salt and Wine

[handsome_unlimited]

First, thank you all so much for the kind words! Truly honoured to receive such praise from such skilled mapmakers!

I agree about the borders being too stark, that was purely for functionality - its primary use is as a reference for my players. They need to be able to look at it and know immediately what is where.

IN SAYING THAT, part of the reason I had it look like that is because I had no frame of reference for drawing district borders on a colour map. Unless I've seen somebody else do it well (which almost always results in me stealing/copying ideas directly from Schley and Torstan), I just end up making something haphazard on the fly. So, if any of you could suggest any good examples of district borders on city maps, I would greatly appreciate it and make the corrections right away!

And thanks so much for all the rep!

[Tonnichiwa]

Well, I don't have any direct examples, but I do remember some ancient maps had faded colors on theirs, instead of super bright ones. So maybe you could fade the red out so that it isn't so bright but is still visible. Or you could do as Lingon and Arsheesh said and change the color of the red to a faded white and more curving along the districts might help.

[handsome_unlimited]

Ok so I had a play around with the borders and effects for a little while - blurred it, softened it, changed colour and opacity. It's slightly better, but I'm still not quite satisfied, and it's not different enough to bother posting another one yet. If you guys think of anything I can use as a visual reference, please let me know!

[tilt]

Have you tried with white border - but in a dotted line instead of a full line?

[ladiestorm]

that is a really cool map!!! And this is hand drawn?!? That must have taken you for ever!

I think cc3(+) would probably work very well for you. You could use terrain contures with a faded color to represent your different districts. There may even be an example of that over on the profantasy site. Under the City Designer product info. You could take a look there... https://secure.profantasy.com/products/cd3_examples.asp It may give you a feel for what city designer can do... although the possibilities are endless!