Coffeebreak Cartography #1

Hi my name is Iain and I’m a mapaholic. Or should that be cartographaholic?

I like drawing maps, both with paper and pen, and digital tools. To that end I’ve decided to publish a series of maps, all done in a coffee break.

I can’t promise one a day, that would be foolish, but I’ll try for one from time to time.

Here’s one for today, as a quick test I’ve been attempting to replicate a hand-drawn style in Photoshop.

It’s rather reminiscent of the style of maps I would draw in class at school, 25 years ago. There’s a definite Tolkein influence at work.

There’s really no digital shortcuts involved, to replicate this hand drawn style I’ve  hand-draw it with a stylus. Once it’s done certain elements could be reused, a mountain here, a hill there. Certainly if I was to include forest elements then they could be repeated with a pattern.

Since the dark days of the late '70s, Iain has been playing and running RPGs of one type or another. When not with his wife and children or working as a software engineer/Photoshop monkey he spends spare time either shooting pointy sticks at pointless paper targets or spending time enjoying the varied worlds of role playing.

Tags: Cartography, Fantasy, Hand-drawn, Map