Tag Archives: maps

Notes to self

Fantasy mapping

Ever since reading Tolkien as a kid, I’ve just loved the style of map that he created for Middle Earth. And this style has carried across to Fantasy RPGs. So when the opportunity came to create a map for The Tales of Tarya series, I jumped at it.

The Map of Litonya

This time I wanted to make a good quality digital copy for this project. YouTube came to the rescue with this excellent video on mapping from the Fantastic Maps Channel.

Drawing Technique

A short summary of the technique for mountains…

  • Use a CC-0 paper or parchment texture for the background layer (0).
  • Add a separate ‘lines’ Layer (4) for the mountain ridge lines and some texturing detail. Use the pressure-sensitive to control the thickness of the line
  • Add an Overlay layer (1), for the ‘Light & Shade’ on the mountain ranges. Use the pressure sensitivity to control the darkness.
    • Start by blocking out the shading of the dark side of the mountain range. Take your time to build up layers of darkness.
    • Add shadows to the light side for the ridges and valleys.
    • As you go reduce size to add more detail.
  • Another Overlay layer (2), for the ‘Light/Shade Detail’, but this time using the pressure sensitive to control line thickness.
    • Then switch to a white brush to add highlights to the light side, with the peaks being the brightest.
  • Now, a Color Layer (3), to add the colour details to the mountains.
    • Using a hard round brush set to a middle grey for bare stone, deep emerald green for Amazonian forest, or red for the Arizona badlands.

Combine that into a group I then proceeded to do the same for the coastline, hills, forests, rivers, cities/towns, and labels. So about 20 layers all up.

Campaign Worlds

Steampunk Sydney map (1934)

I have a love of historical maps and Voommaps 1934 copy of Gregory’s Sydney Directory provides a great resource for creating a rich gaming world based in reality. As a game master, it saves me a huge amount of time to have this available to fill in the blanks. Adapting the map to a Steampunk world, or a pulp adventure story set in the 1930’s.

This provides a great example using a single map resource. There are many more examples out there if you look beyond Sydney. Maps of London from the 1700s, maps of Paris going back to Circa 360. These can act as inspiration, player resources, or a backdrop to the world.