Time to start mapping?
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Also THE place to go to hire someone if you fail miserably at the challenge! Many amazing artists here who offer both advice and create maps. Welcome. I won't make a secret of it, mapping is hard work, there's a reason it's a niche artform loved by a few very passionate people, many of whom who can be found in these parts. But it's no harder than learning to do any other art form, so as long as you're willing to put in some very long hours of drawing tiny mountains and positioning tiny trees the results can be very satisfying. I've been making maps since I was a teenager, and I don't think I would have any idea how I get to the results I achieve today, from the POV of the person who first read Lord of the Rings and wasted just as much time going back to stare at the map and figure out exactly where the people were as I did reading and then thought, hey, I should do that for MY story...
So where you are now? Writing a story and going "hmmm wait a minute I know what I need where's a pencil wait this is harder than I thought it was going to be hey look a forum for this stuff!" is where I started. In case that's encouraging at all. I think it should be. All you need is the passion to pursue the skills and to sink in enough hours to get a result good enough for you.
Realistically? If you plan to TRADITIONALLY publish your publisher will provide an artist and you won't have to do anything, so a loose sketch with labels is all ya really need. I've endured for literally over a decade with my maps for my own settings being hack sketches from my beginning days, since people then started hiring me and I've found myself swamped with enough maps to occupy my attention since 2013. I say endured, because recently I went and drew a very nice version of one of my OG world maps inspired by the monthly challenge (and the inner teenage me is dazzled) and also recently went and started to work on a very nice version of another OG world map, as well as a city layout and some other art. Because I'm jealous of everything I do for other people's writing LOL.
As a professional, not a con-artist, I make no secrets of my techniques and methods when people ask, since it's one of the great delights of my life to inspire other people to find their inner artist. Nothing pleases me more than seeing how I've inspired some people to find their inner greatness and create some amazing art. For one resource, I have a list of free map generator tools, and for another, here's a great texture resource. My tutorial is ancient and I refuse to link it because of how hideously out of date it is. Though it's easy enough to find on DeviantArt (on there, I am calthyechild). DA is another grand texture resource–you'll find thousands of royalty free textures there. In the spirit of sharing, you will even find my completely royalty free textures there, some of which are suitable for use in mapping, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're linked elsewhere on this site, but since I've elected to reply to you I'm pointing them out as a no credit required stock source. (Even though I think my old map brushes are bad and you should not use them... I did use the sets available on my DA for years to great success.)
Anyway, good luck, if you have a draft on which you're stuck you could post it in another part of the board to get feedback, for starters. Or if you just want to fuss with improving your skills, you could start doing the monthly Lite challenges, this month's involves a pre-made lineart so that could be a great way to fool around with setting up some nice textures and try out some coastline styles to figure out the digital side of things.
Most people tend to do digital art these days; I recommend it because you can go back and change names, however there are a few excellent traditional artists on the board too, you'll just find most tutorials directed towards teaching digital art. Since you didn't mention your preference, I must say, a lot of people get hung up on what program to choose. Mapping specific programs are complex beasts. I don't use them. I just draw in Clip Studio Paint these days, and make brushes on spec for when I need them, with the exception of a few forest sets I don't have publicly released, because I can't figure out how to properly share Clip brushes. I moved over from Photoshop to Clip because I find their subscription model unsettling, and because Clip has the ability to make ribbon brushes and save multiple colored brushes in a scattering set (which works incredibly well for making colored forests with dozens of different trees). It's important to not get overwhelmed. Draw by hand if that happens. Practising drawing map assets and looking at atlases and globes and other people's map art will do you way more than 10 different specialty programs. I spend just as much time simply looking at satellite photos / Google Earth / vintage maps / contemporary maps / other people's map art / video game maps / and trying to figure out how they achieved their results, as I do drawing. I have at least 8 different inspirational maps in a wide range of styles relating to upcoming commissions and my private map projects for my own world open in my tabs right now. D:
Anyway yep.
Hi.
