Well, the initial map (the one on page 1) was essentially simply drawn painstakingly (with a mouse, no less) over the course of several weeks and several revisions. Although since then the coastlines have changed quite a few times (and will change again in the future). I don't know if there are too many shortcuts when it comes to drawing the coastlines (aside from generating random clouds, I guess). If you're using PhotoShop, you could try the techniques in
this tutorial. I suppose the main advice is to first draw the general shapes roughly and only work out the detailed coastlines later on.
A good starting point is always drawing things out on paper. Of course, the more you plan ahead while sketching your world, the more satisfied you're likely to be with the final result. So try to put some thought into climate and tectonics even when sketching the initial landscape (though I realise this advice can be quite hard to follow unless you're already well versed with those subjects), particularly if you have some pre-conceived ideas of how you want the climate and/or terrain to turn out in some specific regions.
You could also try sketching things out with GPlates in 3D. It's pretty slow since you have to draw everything point-by-point but it can still be potentially useful, especially for the polar areas.
Here are a few examples from an unfinished test project I did recently to try this out (it's basically a world initially sketched on paper and then in GPlates):
Equirectangular:
Equirectangular.png
Polar view:
Polar.png
As for the tectonics and geology, there are several resources. Wikipedia covers a lot of topics (and often has links to academic papers). There's also
academia.edu, where you can sign up with a google account and search for academic papers. Christopher Scotese's
Atlas of Plate Tectonic Reconstructions is very useful and contains the "12 rules of plate tectonics". I'd also recommend checking
Scotese's youtube channel, as well as
EarthByte, those have a lot of plate tectonic reconstructions.
It's also a good idea to just create something and post it here for feedback, if only to get some practice. Ultimately creating even semi-accurate tectonics for a fictional world is not an easy task and it does take some practice. If you check out my initial tectonics maps in the opening pages of this thread, you'll note that my initial maps weren't very good.
Originally Posted by Charerg
Well, the initial map (the one on page 1) was essentially simply drawn painstakingly (with a mouse, no less) over the course of several weeks and several revisions. Although since then the coastlines have changed quite a few times (and will change again in the future). I don't know if there are too many shortcuts when it comes to drawing the coastlines (aside from generating random clouds, I guess). If you're using PhotoShop, you could try the techniques in this tutorial. I suppose the main advice is to first draw the general shapes roughly and only work out the detailed coastlines later on.
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