WIP: Warning, this map is ugly! LOL

[Archmagician]

I threw together this map for a campaign, and I would like to get feedback on all the things I am doing wrong. I actually like the colors on it articially but I have to admit that it is an ugly betty.

I guess I am lost on the following:

1) how to color properly a big regional map
2) Best way to show cities. Those icons I used are super ugly.

Are there some style guides in general for map making?

I want to redo this one after your harsh criticisms. LOL

MapOfTheFiveCities1.png

[Falconius]

Straight lines are unnatural for borders, they always follow natural defensible, or difficult to navigate, terrain features, unless there is some diplomatic aberration that causes people with maps and pencils to start deciding borders, but that is a more modern thing.

If you are going with a perspective map instead of straight top down, you might be better off doing some line work first, either a sketch or something more final and then colouring that in with paint. After which you can either drop the line layer or keep it.

As for the castle icons they key with profile icons like that is they have to have nice clear line work that is engaging on an individual level. What I mean by that is they have to be composed so that if it was just a picture of that and nothing else you'd still be interested to look at them. It's hard to do that with something so symmetrical or small. It might be better to just use different dots.

[Archmagician]

Good points! (No pun intended)

I am going to rework this map and try and make it better.

[QED42]

There are a bunch of great tutorials on this site so I would suggest running through a few of them just making tester maps to get an idea of how to do things then embark on the map you really want. Either check out the tutorials section on the forum or let us know what software you are using/have available to you and I'm sure someone can suggest some good ones.

[Archmagician]

That is a good point. I've pretty much got all the software. Autodesk Sketchbook, Photoshop Creative Suite, Autocad, Gimp...

I'm leaning towards using a combination of Sketchbook and Photoshop.

[QED42]

I would recommend any or all of the tutorials by Arsheesh in this thread, although they are for GIMP I think they probably cross over to photoshop too. This thread by RobA was also helpful for me too.

Those are the main ones I've worked through to get me started on map making but I'm sure there are plenty of other good ones in there yet that I haven't checked out yet.