Creating a tutorial. Need your input.

[Wired]

Some time ago I asked on another website if people there would be interested in me making a tutorial for a lineart map, so I've begun putting one together. I'll be cross-posting it here so that you can have a look at it and give me your feedback with regards what I need to add or should change. Please have a look.

[ChickPea]

Cool! I'll enjoy reading it.

[Wired]

Hello and welcome to Wired's Map Tutorial for Beginners, where I aim to lead you through the creation of a black & white fantasy lineart map with a few tips and tricks!

First things first: what do you need?
-- an image manipulation program like the commercial Photoshop or the open-sourced GIMP; This tutorial will be for Photoshop; specifically, I'm working with Photoshop CS5. GIMP by and large does have the same functionalities, though they may be labelled differently in some cases.
-- I recommend a graphics tablet; you will be able to do what I do here with a mouse and a very steady hand, but you should at least think about getting yourself something like a basic WACOM Bamboo tablet (I started out on a tiny Bamboo Pen & Touch for less than 70€).

Before we begin, a tip that'll end up being invaluable to you once you start map projects (or rather: any artistic project) in these two programs: LABEL YOUR LAYERS! This'll allow you to keep track of what you are doing and will make adjustments lateron far easier for you. My maps nowadays often exceed 100 layers. Try thinking about how much time I'd have to waste looking for something if I hadn't accurately labeled each layer...


Wired's Map Tutorial for Beginners

Part 1: And on the first Day, Wired Created the Land and the Oceans...

Alright, let's jump right in. Open the image manipulation program of your choice and create a new file. Here's what I used:
Image Size.jpg

Regarding the resolution, while many people say technically 72dpi ought to be enough for digital pieces I've made the experience that a higher DPI setting doesn't hurt. Especially the linework can get rather pixelated if you go with 72dpi and try to have smooth features. So for this piece I chose 300dpi.

Now you'll have a blank, white page.

1.) add a new, transparent layer. Name this layer Basic Outline.
2.) check your brush presets. In Photoshop pick the hard round pressure size brush at 2px. It should be the fourth brush preset Photoshop comes equipped with. The nice thing is that you will be able to draw almost the whole map with this single brush at its factory setting.
Brush.jpg

3.) change the color to red and draw a rough outline of the map you'd like to create. Here you really want to do the basic forms as a sort of scaffold to build upon in the following steps. Here's what I've come up with. As you can see it's really simple.
Basic Outline.jpg

4.) Switch the color back to black and open a new layer. Call this layer Coastline.
The tricky part about coastlines is that they should neither be too jagged nor to rounded. That means they shouldn't look as if they're completely made from fresh, sharp-edged rocks, and neither should they look like the smooth surface of a Roman statue (unless, of course, that's exactly what you want ). You may not get this right the first time. Don't worry, neither did I.

5.) Using the Basic Outline as a scaffold we now draw the actual coastline for our map with the hard round pressure size brush at 2px. This gives us some variety in the thickness of the coastline that'll give the whole thing a nicely natural look.
Make sure to include river mouths, capes, flowing parts for beaches etc. You can also add islands now if you didn't outline them earlier. Give the viewer/player/etc. something to look at, something to spike their imagination. Here's what I've made from the outline:
Coastline.jpg

6.) Technically, that's all the basics you need. You can now hide the Basic Outline layer. We could now move on to land features like hills and forests already, but that'd leave the map rather unrefined. To remedy that, add a new layer and call it Coastline, Details.
Here's where things get trickier as there's no concrete advice I can give you other than to find a good balance. What I mean by this is that the linework of this layer only works its magic if there's enough of it - and not too much of it. You'll understand what I mean in a second.
No coast is a straight line that just delineates land from water. You've got beaches, bays, river shores, sand banks, and much more that play into the look of a coastline. That's what we'll try to represent in this step.
Use low pressure on the brush to add features and texture to the coastline. A good guideline might be to add features to about 1/3rd to 1/2 of the coastline.
Coastline Details.jpg
See what I meant? We've basically just drawn some broken, wiggly lines, but since our mind subconsciously knows how a coastline ought to look it's taken these little lines for the features we know substituted them for it.

7.) To further define the coast we'll now add a few lines hinting at different sea levels and the continental shelf. Again, take your standard brush, and follow the the coastline with short lines and dots, this time on the sea side. Repeat the process a bit further out. For the shelf, double the distance and apply even less pressure and take greater breaks between the brush strokes. Now, your map should look something like this:
Continental Shelf.jpg

End of Part 1

[Wired]

Part 2: There Shall Be Mountains!

Mountains are an integral part of any map, and in the process of drawing one they should be the first features you place after you've finished your territorial outline. The reason for that is simple: mountains divide the land in neat spaces; they set the parameters for where your rivers flow and with that, where pretty much the rest of your vegetation and civilization flourishes.

My own process usually goes something like this:
1.) place mountains --> hills --> place rivers --> place forests --> ...

However, that's purely a personal preference. What you do and how you proceed with it really is up to you and how your workflow works best for you.

For each map you draw you'll have to settle down on what type of mountain style you intend to use and what mountains - if any - the map actually needs. By that I mean that various climates and locations work better with some styles than others. If you draw a desert environment smooth, comparably low mountains with rounded tops due to the erosion from wind and sandstorms may be the best choice. Conversely, for a map in the cold north, tall and jagged peaks can be the better alternative.

For our example I've chosen to make it into a regional map of some Viking-style setting. The coastline offers itself well to the jagged fjords of a pseudo-Scandinavia, so that's the direction I will take this in. Right on then: by Odin's beard, let's draw some mountains!
My Mountains.jpg

There you go! Your turn now.

Hold your horses, ladies and gentlemen: I'm just kidding.
That's really not a style for beginners, so let me turn back time a bit and help you through this with a more suitable style, step by step, okay?

1.) The outline.
Once you've decided where your mountains shall be, pick our usual brush, change the thickness to 3px, and draw your first mountain. Try to think of an upside down V or W, and apply more pressure the further away from the edges of the mountain you get. This way you get linework that suggests the forms start to blend into the background. It should look something like this:
Mountains Tutorial Outline.jpg

Those are the basic shapes. To make them even better I've picked up a neat little trick that'll help give them the impression of rising from the ground rather than being dumped into position: the small, nibbly lines.
Mountains Tutorial Closeup1.jpg
They don't look like much, but it's often the small things that make the difference, Form here on I'll mark each of those small "multipliers" with red circles the first time I use them.

2.) The rest.
Yeah, it's that unceremonial. There are various ways we can do this, but for the sake of simplicity we'll chose a style that combines both, the shading aspect and the general outline.
Draw rounded lines that follow the general shape of the mountain, going from edge to edge. Use shorter lines on the side of the mountains exposed to sunlight, and use longer lines on that side in the shade. It's not the most elaborate approach, but it allows you to do create useful mountains without having to take care of ridgelines and linking up mountains into chains etc. That's for when you've gotten more comfortable with drawing maps. Anyway, your example at this point should look something like this:
Mountains Tutorial All Lines.jpg

End of Part 2

[ChickPea]

Not seeing any images.

[Wired]

Not seeing any images.

Strange. Maybe I'll have to reference them locally and post them as thumbnails. I'll have to look into that...

[jshoer]

Not seeing any images.

Me, neither. I would love to help you out when they do appear!

[Wired]

Can you see them now?

[jshoer]

I do! I will take a look through the tutorial itself next.

[saria]

I'm enjoying this tutorial, it has a good amount of detail, and I like the references to PS to learn tricks and the settings you use. this is perfect! I'll look forward to following any other bits you post as well