WIP - Map of Daenor

[PWKerns]

Hello! I've been admiring the maps on the forums for a while now and thought I'd throw my hand in by taking a hand-draw map that I did a few years ago and redoing it in GIMP. This map was done for a D&D Campaign I ran that had a Roman Empire inspiration with the action of the campaign set during the slow collapse of the Empire. Ultimately, I'd like to do maps entirely digitally, but for now I'll be stripping the coastline from the original map image. My current plan is to create an artistic rather than realistic map, mostly monochrome, in sepia tones echoing the current paper version along the lines of Darklingrisen's tutorial for GIMP.

1) Strip out coastline from image
2) Use layers and masks to add texture to the image
3) Use tutorials to add drawn-style mountains, hills using GIMP
4) Add rivers, roads, cities, points of interest
5) Feature names

Any suggestions will be much appreciated!

Daenor Map.JPG

When I click on the map thumbnail it opens sideways in a new window - is there a way to fix that?

[PWKerns]

Loaded the picture in GIMP and ran through RobA's "Using GIMP to create an artistic world map" tutorial up to step 8. I feel like I'm learning a ton!

WIP Daenor Step 8.png

[PWKerns]

Played around with outlining - took me a while to figure out that for concentric outlines you need to select the whitespace and shrink for each consecutive outline. For these images I did a 6 px/ 4 / 2 / 1 outline and a 4 px / 2 / 1. I like the second one better and think I'll use it.
Daenor Oultine 4 lines.png
Daenor Oultine 3 lines.png

Also, picked up a copy of StarRaven's brushes and have been having some fun with those, so hopefully the next map will have most of the terrain roughed in.

[madbird-valiant]

Looking good, man! I'm not a fan of the concentric borders thing, but it looks pretty good here.

[PWKerns]

Madbird - Thanks, I'm going to throw down some terrain for the next map and maybe play around with some parchment textures.