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Fantasy map designer5/19/2023 ![]() Let this article be your map through the wilds of the Internet to find the best software for your worldbuilding needs. So, what’s the best map-making software out there? There are plenty of options to help first-time cartographers make beautiful maps. As a Game Master, there’s no better way to capture the imagination of your players than with maps of your world, dungeons, and battlefields. From the inside covers of fantasy books to the map screens of video games, maps are visual gateways into fantastic worlds. ![]() The final stage was entirely made in Photoshop, adding all the colors, lights, effects and the background landscape.If there’s one thing guaranteed to spark the excitement of any adventurer, it’s a map. Then, they were all placed together in Adobe Illustrator, where the drawing was created with just black strokes. The process started by sketching each group of characters in paper. My main objective was to give very happy face expressions to the characters, as well as a vibrant color scheme, to convey a cheerful and relaxed atmosphere. The groups of children in the illustration show some of the activities that are developed in this place. The request was to design an image to be placed at the top zone of their Homepage, to catch the attention of the viewers and also to represent what they do.Īlthough they had a lot of photos of their activities, it was decided to create an illustration, in order to avoid showing pictures of real kids for safety reasons. The main work of “Mt Zion Kids” is to organize activities for children. Thank you so much! Please feel free to ask questions if I have not made something clear. ![]() It needs to fit naturally in a rectangular space. I will need the final image to fit in a 5” x 8” book. The setting is a pseudo-Asian (Chinese) fantasy, so the overall design should reflect that emphasis. Important motifs I would love to see included are:Īny one or several of these elements would be welcome, particularly the Moon Goddess. Other pretty illustrative elements would be welcome as well. A pretty compass illustration would be great! Sepia tones would also be very welcome.Ĭompass directions are indicated on the raw image. The version in the print book will be black-and-white, but color options would look amazing in the Kindle edition. I am happy to see it either in color or in black-and-white. I would love to see this raw image of mine transformed into a realistic, convincing, topographical map. I’d like to see pretty mountains illustrated for the “Khir Mountains,” not the brown lumps I used to indicate them! This part of the journey does feature in the book, so it’s important that it be kept accurate: rolling, blank, grassy country. The place where the caravan journey crosses through “Chhayan Territory” is, again, plains country. I would like to see the “Caravan Journey to Daramuti” illustrated somehow, though NOT in an ugly red line like I have done! It still exists as part of the Noorhitam Empire, but since no characters visit it, there’s no need to give it any details. The area entitled “Kitar Territory” never features in the story, so you may feel free to leave it mostly blank. The area entitled “Chhayan Territory” is plains country, so no mountains there. It is a very IMPORTANT location in this story, so I would like to see it illustrated somehow. It features in the book, so while it’s not as important as the cities, I would like to have it depicted.ĭaramuti is a mountain temple. If they could somehow be illustrated as cities-maybe a palace motif or something else to give an impression of city-that would be great. The Nua-Pratut Kingdom is fairly independent of the huge Noorhitam Empire.Īja is an island kingdom mentioned several times in this book.Ĭities Include: Lunthea Maly and Suthinnakor The territories include: Chhayan Territory and Old Kitar Territory. The Noorhitam Empire is made up of a variety of kingdoms and territories, all under one empire. to some of those big blank spaces.Īlso, I would like to see some interesting islands added to the shoreline. So please feel free to add rivers, hills, lakes, forests, etc. I never bothered to add details of rivers, lakes, and other interesting topography, focusing only on those locations that actually feature in the book itself. The raw map I have uploaded was a very basic image I kept on hand just to keep locations straight as I wrote. but fans of my series ask me again and again to provide them with maps to my world, so I figured it was time I began. All right, for starters, let me apologize for how rough the attached map image is! Map-making is NOT my specialty.
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