Do you draw maps for your worlds(s)? How detailed do you go? for those of you that do...

Ew, Inkarnate...

That ends my dump.

I also did a map for the main city.

For those of us who lack proper mapmaking skills, it really helpfull and easy to put our ideas of a map down on something

I suppose. However it makes maps look samey and fake. I think the effort would be better spent just learning how to draw triangles for mountains and circles for trees over and over

>54959949

That's a good idea, some sort of not! Alexandria I get.

You should probably:
a) color the river, canals and the sea
b) diversify the roads, make the slums crisscrossed with crooked small roads and the richer quarters with wider streets (in general it's not totally cleare what the blocks represent, they seem too big for single buildings)
c) perhaps have some altitude curves? I think there is a mountain in the necropolis, it's not really clear

All in all good idea, might even steal. Would approve of a detailed map.

I disagree. How many different Inkarnate maps are you going to show your group? It is really good at making artful maps.

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my WIP, about halfway done

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Feel free man, I appreciate the insights.

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You can't tell me that it doesn't look like the buildings and trees have been stamped in. It's obvious that the map was made with pre-packaged assets.

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damn this is big

>Do you draw maps for your worlds(s)? How detailed do you go?

I do!
Pic related is a map I drew! I need to draw more maps, I like drawing maps.

>for those of you that do, what would be some tips for someone not so artistically inclined?

If I had any advice to give: maps are just a series of shape chunks that you carve out into making sense, hills, forests, features, etc, they can all just be tweeked and pinched and molded into whatever you want them to be so long as you vaguely understand what or how they look like shape-wise. Maps are really forgiving in this aspect.
The other thing about Maps is doing elevation is super simple as it can be as easy as drawing lawered darker shades or if it's black and white just drawing a bunch of "folds", when you start thinking of altitude as just layers or cross-sections it gets way easier.

The final thing I guess is rivers and lakes, people can be really impressed and forgive a 'bad' map if it has good bodies of water. I'm no AQUATIC GENIUS, but I generally understand that water sources begin and fork down from mountains/hills/some 'source' that's at a higher altitude and then beginning converging/joining together as they make their way to the ocean.

And? There's literally nothing wrong with that, especially with the earlier incarnation of Inkarnate where the scale was much larger and the randomization more varied.

This one's forests look pretty fake and the mountains are very clearly drawn according to the same pattern.

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Yeah, you're clearly not getting what I'm saying.

When I said "fake" I didn't mean it literally. All maps are "fake" looking if they're not satellite images or photo-realistic paintings, so you better include all the posts in this thread and say they look "fake" because they aren't realistic representations of actual landscapes.

When I said "fake" I meant "it all looks stamped in." At least my map took more than an hour of effort.

>inb4 hurr durr but planning takes more than an hour.

>I only play on artisinal hand crafted maps because of my refined taste
lol

Its fine. People bitching about 'samey' and 'authenticity' are picky bitches who can't be pleased by anything you do or say so don't worry about it. Using computers to do things is as legit a form, just with different materials.

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Except that's exactly what you're saying.
>It looks fake because it's all standardized assets.

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Dude I'm literally using simple shapes for everything. Triangles for mountains, circles/triangles for trees, squiggles for rivers, and jagged lines for coast/river lines. Not my fault simple geometric shapes create a better map than copy-pasted assets.

Yes, you're right that it looks fake due to standardized assets. But (my map) isn't using standardized assets.

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I drew this one, first time I've ever made a map.

Except even when it's not standardized, look at your trees and your mountains. They're very clearly channeling 1 specific styleset, which makes them look like they're cloned next to one another.

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Except, ya know, I drew each tree by hand with my mouse. Small, simple shapes drawn next to each other tend to look very similar. I'm working with a 2 pixel brush.

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Correction: drew each tree AND mountain by hand

my point still stands.

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>not my fault I can't acknowledge subjective preferences for aesthetics
seek help

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You can claim "muh preferences" all you want, doesn't change the fact that the aesthetics are amateurish.

lol good thing you're a fun professional

I spent about 45 minutes making pic related, a town map of a village my players will encounter next session. I just used MSPaint and a mouse, but everyone else's maps are blowing me away

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Here is a half completed king maker map I was working on before the DM killed the entire town while we were teleported 3 months travel away and had to get back.

That's the point, though. Even when drawn by hand, it looks like they're all the same thing, especially the forests. Compare ; the forests are all stamped by by a brush, but there's just enough variation and complexity that they don't look like a repeating pattern at first glance.

The hills are obviously all the same shape, and they are very easily identified as stamped on. The mountains have variation in line weight and shadow, yet it's obvious they are only the same two shapes repeated.

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That's a nice map. I was thinking of trying a kingmaker game.

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I forgot to mention the entire thing is layered so you can just swipe off the fog of war as you go and add and remove markers and terrain as they're found (Or founded in the case of settlements.)

This is my latest work. A hex gridded world map template that you can slot in isochedron generated maps from donjon's fractal world generator. Also included is a nice nested hex grid for scaling parts of it down all the way from global, to regional, to king maker, to local.

Oh. You don't think maps are representational. Or you think that models have to incorporate variance found in nature to be fool the viewer into finding it appealing or something like that.

Time to post your a e s t h e t i c maps.

Its pretty fun, I'm a big fan of city building stuff so i'm currently running a survival/ kingdom builder one for my group. I'm only a session in and I'm just setting up ways for those who actually want to get back to their homes home after everyone was stranded.

Here's the map that I was filling out exactly as I saw this thread. My sister helped me make a ton of cliff brushes so I'm going to redo the whole edge of the canyon.

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I never called myself a professional. Are you implying that using Inkarnate isn't amateurish? It has its merits, but unless you're going purely functional it's better to just draw it out.

I'm not saying my map is a shining example of map making and it's without faults - this is only my second map (pic posted is my first real attempt and i didn't much like it). Furthermore, when drawing a large map it's just more efficient to repeat a simple pattern then to draw something complicated - unless you're going for something less functional and more artsy. Stamping complicated assets everywhere looks even more samey.

The point I'm trying to make is that using Inkarnate is fine, just don't think it's a good way to make pretty maps. I've yet to see an Inkarnate map that looks good overall. Even a simple MSPaint map has more "soul" than an Inkarnate map.

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Are you implying any of us are RPG map professionals? The entire medium is amateur if you are doing it at home not for money, they are maps for playing games with your friends. That's how the word works. You're an amateur too, regardless of your medium. Its not a slur. Hobbies aren't professions for a majority of the people in the hobby.

What's better is what works for them. You can discuss technical skills as having various strengths and merits for various circumstances, but the stuff you've posted is just as functional/evocative/etc. as what you're being a shitwalker about.

>The point I'm trying to make is that using Inkarnate is fine, just don't think it's a good way to make pretty maps.
Except Inkarnate maps do look pretty.

You make a very good point.

I just think that since the hobby is a very personal one (you have to interact with others, use your imaginations, etc.), making maps should also be personal. Inkarnate is one of the least "involved" ways for making a fantasy map.

To each his own, I suppose.

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I get what you mean. I draw mine poorly, and usually prefer how a thing looks is someone hand made it, but in a way I tend to and try to appreciate more whatever my friend made for what it is in regard to material composition, intent and capability. Like, if someone makes a thing for us to have fun with, I'm probably going to like it for that, where as if we're trying to get better at a technical skill that's a different thing. There's cross over though.

Sorry, I was definitely being a dick there when I didn't need to be.

I'm sorry, but that's a bad example. There are green hills in the brown sandy area to the left, the mountains look like they belong in a desert, the coloring of the different trees in the center look mismatched and are distracting, there aren't proper rain shadows, the compass is rotated 45 degrees.

Overall it looks really flat and mismatched.

Nah it's all cool. I was being a dick, if anything.

I'd love to get Valanis and Dawn of Dominions maps without province borders, especially as "my setting" is based on outright stolen and somewhat modified Dominions lore, including being set on the later map.

Literally the only good thing about this edition, and indeed the kickstarter, was the big cloth map of this.

Stop spamming this piece of shit

I don't. I just describe the terrain. Describe the areas they travel to. Describe the places where shit happens. I just make stuff up as I go. Maps are useless.

What game is it? I never found out.

I did my map by hand. I wouldn't recommend using colouring pencils ever again. Takes fucking ages and fades pretty quick. Still its been used a ton in the navel campaign I'm running at the moment.

That looks good! Coloring pencils are good, but I think scanning in the inked map and coloring it using Photoshop or GIMP would be better.