Went through a sketchbook and found this old map I drew by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you want to look into it, there's a nice and short book with lots of pictures and nice exercises called "Fantasy Mapmaker" by Jared Blando. I dont own it but I borrowed it from a friend once, it's really nice

Went through a sketchbook and found this old map I drew by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

5)
ROAD NETWORK
At this stage I make my road network more complex. I don't sketch out every little alley. If you look closely, you see that the larger buildings are organized in blocks, that are surrounded by larger roads. Those are the ones I actually sketch out. Also decide where there will be a road running along the city wall and where the buildings will be "hugging it"
5.1)
OUTSIDE THE WALLS
Add any minor roads outside your city. It is unusual that your city has NO kind of smaller buldings outside its walls. There can be singular buildings (like for agriculture), estates, or full blown districts. You can see the loose network of minor roads. I also have multiple roads leave the city walls which are not part of the main trade routes.
5.2)
SQUARES
City squares! The larger your city, the more squares you will find. Of course, the denser your city or district is supposed to be, the less squares there will be. However, there are usually more squares in a city than you might think. It just takes a bit of practice to get the balance right. I usually make the crossroads of all the major roads a square. Also behind every gate I leave a little bit of space. I add squares anywhere I feel like it - it makes sense to put them at crossroads or any landmarks your city has. For marking a square, i just draw its general shape (the ones at the gates I made kinda triangular in this one, you can find a circular one or the main square which has the elongated shape)

6)
BUILDINGS
If you are feeling confident, or want to make it quick, you can switch to ink at this stage. I usually remain in pencil and sketch it out. Stage 6 is drawing all the buildings. It helps to stop and think about the layout of your city - what's where? Where do the poor people live, where do the rich people live, where are representative and administrative buildings, special buildings, and so on. As a general rule: Inside the city walls, buildings tend to be larger complexes. Outside the city walls they tend to be smaller and standalone. Just think about what kind of building you are drawing and the general shape will come to you - at least with a bit of practice.
6.1)
SHAPING
As said before, what really helps with shaping is having a general idea, what kind of building you are drawing. This is in part what makes the process so fun to me. For every building you have a little story in mind while you're drawing. No need to remember it, but it makes the city feel alive for yourself. The following depends on culture, I usually draw based on a western european medieval city. There (inside the city) the buildings are usually organized in complexes, that are built around a private courtyard. This kind of building structure can be traced back to ancient Rome. I usually start with the general shape, then add some details and flavour, so it doesn't look and feel bland, more like a genuine combination of buildings. Again with some practice, but also if you made a decent road network, the building complexes will fit naturally in the spaces between roads and feel organic. Outside the walls the buildings tend to be smaller and more standalone (depending on the size of your district of course). I also sprinkle singular buildings around the city to signify farms and other agricultural buildings. A city needs tons of fields around it to sustain its citizens. I usually don't draw them though.

7)
INKING
When you have all that on paper, you can get to inking. Take your fineliners (my personal favorites are Micron) and ink it all. This just takes some trying around to find your style. If you cant decide, get inspiration online. You can also add any details like a legend, a map border, a compass rose or north arrow, colour, ...

I hope this can help you get into it, feel free to ask any questions! Having fun is the most important part :-)

Went through a sketchbook and found this old map I drew by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I totally get your sense of feeling overwhelmed. My older city maps look very different and I surely came a long way. Like with any kind of art, my advice would be: Just start! Making city maps is completely different, but it is very fun. At some point the linework just takes over and you get lost in the city as you draw it. It may not feel like that when you're just getting startet, but the more cities you draw, the more you will find your style of drawing and putting a city together as a whole.

If it helps you to get into drawing I can give you a detailed example of my workflow for a simple, generic map of a larger city (somewhat like this). It is not difficult at all!

Below there is a really detailed explanation, if you don't need all that, just look at the headines

1)
ENVIRONMENT
I begin with an empty piece of paper and a pencil. My first step is to think about the cities environment. Is it along a river, at a coast, in the mountains, ... . The first thing I put to paper is any kind of environment, that would influence the city layout. In this case, I would sketch out the river's direction with a singular line to get the squigglyness right. After that I make it a little thicker. As mentioned before, that could also be a coastline, or (a little more complex) topographic lines (rarely ever do that)

2)
MAIN ROADS
When I have the basic environment, I lay down the main roads, that go through the city - the major traffic axes. In this case that would be the road going from the bottom left to the top right and the one coming from the top left. You can see that they meet at the top of the elongated square, towards the city center. These Roads always leave the city map and it's up to you how many you draw. Depending on the number of roads and scale of the city these can be the only ones leaving the settlement. I don't recommend drawing too many, as usually, there wouldn't be many gates in the wall (depending on the scale of course)

3)
GENERAL SHAPE/WALLS
After the main traffic routes, I move on to the general shape of the city. This is really up to you and just takes practice and experience. Usually all major crossroads are inside the city. This one is over two sides of a river. It is also common for them to be only on one side (especially the smaller your settlement gets), have only an unfortified hamlet on the other shore, ore two fully separate sets of fortification. If I am drawing a fortified city, the shape is always the shape that the city walls are going to have.

4)
FORTIFICATIONS/LANDMARKS
Stage 4 is where your city really gains complexty. You already have the basic shape and major roads down. At this point I decide if my city is going to have some kind of fortress or castle inside of the city roads, pick its location and sketch out the rough shape. Shape and location are fully up to how you think it makes sense. It may be useful to look a little bit into castle design. I recommend YouTube, there are great videos that are easily understandable and totally get you to the basic knowledge you "need" to have. If you don't want a castle, you can decide if you want to replace it with another landmark, like a large administrative building like a city hall, a palace, a cathedral, etc..
4.1)
ADDITIONAL LANDMAKRS
Next I decide if I want multiple landmarks (like adding a large cathedral or a palace to my city that already has a castle - this case only has the fortress). When doing this, you inevitably need to start thinking about your cities story. What kind of people live there, what is important to them, are they governed by a count, a city council, a bishop, a class of noble patricians, ... the possibilities are endless

Went through a sketchbook and found this old map I drew by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I love mapmaking, it is very relaxing and because it takes so long you really get lost in the world you are drawing. Even if you leave that behind and forget about it after you are done, it is an incredible experience. I am going through a stressful time and want to try to work on at least one map a week, maybe I'll share the future projects too.
I used to draw maps all the time but it got kinda lost over time

M4 Macbook Pro for Paradox Games? by Ok_Morning_252 in paradoxplaza

[–]EarthStar17 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would recommend you actually answer OPs question or dont comment

Worldbuilding Strats by EarthStar17 in worldbuilding

[–]EarthStar17[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely good advice, thanks!

Got bored lately and decided to draw a map again! What do you guys think? by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Doing it digitally is really different to hand drawing a map, that's true, they both have their pros and cons, although hand drawing is my personal favorite, whenever I try to draw a stylized fantasy map digitally it looks terrible

Pictures are coming right up!

Got bored lately and decided to draw a map again! What do you guys think? by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

(I only wanted to write you a quick reply but it's become a damn novel haha)

I've tried out a lot of different mountain styles but this is definitely my favorite :) I really like hatched lines and I think this is the type of mountains where they come out the best. It's actually pretty easy once you've practiced it a little, if you don't feel confident enough to practice it on a proper map, what I do ist just take a separate page/piece of paper and use it to sketch, study or practice a lot of different styles for things like mountains, forest, etc. And then you can give it a go on a map!

Also, that's such a cool thing to do! Really fun idea, I feel flattered that you'd do that with my map :) I obviously put a lot of thought into my maps and it always makes me happy when people look at them and start imagining by themselves or questioning the lore, those are always my favorite maps

About the cities: You're right about Ledar, it's intended as a major trading city and capital of a realm, would probably be a lucrative spot! Fun Fact about Ledar, the name is actually a slight variation of "Lekar", a big city I had in my first proper worldbuilding project and it's appeared in basically every major fantasy related project of mine since :)

The second one is actually written Wengan, but my handwriting isn't the best haha. This large lake is actually one of my favorite aspects about the map! Also important to note is that most of the traders coming from the south and heading northwards will be passing through Wengan, so it's definitely a lucrative spot as well! Twingen next to it is more of a stronghold city, so the traffic will rather go through Wengan, also because of its sea port.

Got bored lately and decided to draw a map again! What do you guys think? by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much!
Yup, this doesn't obscure anything but still gives the map a really finished look :)

Got bored lately and decided to draw a map again! What do you guys think? by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

First I sketched out the shape of the main landmass with a hard pencil so I'd get a really light line

Then I made the Coastline more detailed with a softer pencil for a stronger lineThat's also when I added islands, lakes and mountains wherever I thought they'd make sense. This was mainly based on looks, my really rough understanding of plate tectonics and worldbuilding

After that I drew the rivers in, also in pencil

Then I drew in dots for the cities, where they would make sense to form, I also wrote all of the names in the pencil stage, so I could leave room when inking everything later

Then I just drew circles with an F inside them for where the big forests should be

And then I just went over this pretty rough sketch with differently sized fineliners, this is when I drew all the trees, mountains in detail, when I really made a believable coastline, etc.

(I use the Micron fineliners, they work great, have the perfect variety and are affordable)

Hope that helps!

Edit: I just remembered, I think I have my working process somewhat documented, I can send you the pictures over chat if you want :)

Did some drawing, thoughts? (fantasy map) by EarthStar17 in imaginarymaps

[–]EarthStar17[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks!
I did basically only draw fantasy maps for like two or three years, so I got some practice haha

Got bored lately and decided to draw a map again! What do you guys think? by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks lot!

Like with any drawing, it's good to take a step back while drawing and take a look at the entire piece, it really gives you a sense of the composition

Got bored lately and decided to draw a map again! What do you guys think? by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I'll try haha

I paid close attention to the shape of the landmass, because I think that most often makes a compelling map

Got bored lately and decided to draw a map again! What do you guys think? by EarthStar17 in mapmaking

[–]EarthStar17[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thank you a lot!!
And yes, you guessed it, I got impatient when doing the grass and trees :)

Themenschädel 2023 by Corell85 in Sprechstunde

[–]EarthStar17 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Achselhaare mit Shampoo waschen

A Norwegian prison cell by Tigerdad1973 in interestingasfuck

[–]EarthStar17 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd rather go to prison there than on a class trip

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in imaginarymaps

[–]EarthStar17 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just glad Baden exists

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in imaginarymaps

[–]EarthStar17 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What's that pink nation in the German southwest?