How to create a real city map (San Fran) in Fractal Terrains / Campaign Cartographer?

[ravells]

You mentioned you are doing this for a client? When is your deadline? What standard of map is your client expecting? My thoughts are seriously that if you are this far behind the curve in knowing how to do this and more importantly knowing the software and/or having the drawing on paper type artistic chops to get the finish you mentioned - you are going to need a deadline of months (at least -depending on how well practised you are with the software/trad art) to get the map done. You might consider subbing it out to someone else. It's a real world map, so you could go to www.cartotalk.com which has people that specialise in real world maps and try and get help there, but my impression is that if your deadline is within a month it's going to be a hard ask.

Your style example was probably drawn by one or more commercial artists who had many years of experience in doing this one thing and who fed their families on it. Can you tell us what experience you actually have in drawing maps like these, how well you know which software? If you could post some examples of previous work you've done with CC and FT and the deadline you are expecting to meet, that would be useful just to assess if you have a chance. I can tell you with utter certainty that there is no silver bullet piece of software that is going to do this for you by pressing a few buttons.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

best

Ravs