Your Expert Advice

[Qin]

Hey , any one have any advice on this map?
My friends and I are going to start making our own campaign setting, and I will be making most of the maps. I need advice on if this is a good choice of style or if you have any hints on improving it.

[RPMiller]

I suppose a start would be what do the colors represent and what type of map are you going for? If the colors are height than you have some very scary geological formations going on.

From a style standpoint, it is hard to tell this early on, but the pic on the parchment is extremely washed out and sort of hard to look at. Is this going to be a fantasy setting or something else?

[Qin]

It is a fantasy map. Please explain my defaults so i can make my mapping better.

[GlennZilla]

I wouldn't try to use the second map on a regular basis, despite being very artistic and intresting. However the second map is also washed out and a bit less concise because of it.

For both maps, I'd strongly suggest a legend. I often leave them off my maps and thus get a lot of questions as to what something means. This map is big and complex enough that you'd want to explain what the colors mean as well as some kind of indication of scale and climate.

I think once you've added a legend and some labels so we can get a sense of what the details of the map are, we can give a bit more of a critique.

[pyrandon]

I really like the way this is shaping up! Nicely done--vivid, yet not too much so. I agree the right-hand map is too subdued & transparent, but the left map is wonderful. A legend and some other markers are a good idea, too.

Keep it up! Looking great. Is this a Photoshop map? How did you achieve your results?

[Qin]

This is just a base land map. there are no towns or any features yet just wanted to see if you liked the base land map part. This was made in photoshop, I made some clouds the difference clouds, then i just made some new layers, colored the different things accordingly, ( grass, forest, mountain,) then set the layer to overlay. I blurred the color some and thats what i got.

[keithcurtis]

I would suggest desaturizing a bit. The colors, particularly the water blue are very intense. Also, blurring might have been a mistake. The coastlines are kind of indistinct. I think that when you get to the labeling stage, a lot of this will improve dramatically. Words and symbols anchor images very well.