Creating a Colored Fantasy Map You’ll Love!

Text is used to give places names in maps.
Picture of Sunfire

Sunfire

CONTENTS

Introduction

Have you looked online and seen all the cool types of fantasy maps and you were impressed by them? They made you want to make your own and you tried but no matter how hard you worked, it just didn’t turn out as great as you hoped? You knew there was a way, you just couldn’t figure it out. There’s a way to create a great fantasy map and it’s easier than you think, though it requires a great deal of work to put together. However, it’s all worth it!

There are two major ways to create a fantasy map. In the last article, we covered how to hand-draw a fantasy map. The name of that article is Making a Beautiful Fantasy Map by Hand-Drawing It.  This article, however, focuses on an entirely different method, one more advanced than drawing a map by hand. It requires only a few things: Adobe Photoshop — if you don’t have it, you can use your drawing application though you’ll have to find their counterparts to what we’ll do here — and patience.

This method can be a bit time-consuming but in the end, you’ll have a beautiful fantasy map you can’t wait to show off! Before we get started, remember to save often! The last thing you want is to lose all your hard work. A basic knowledge of where things are in Photoshop is required, as it’ll make the whole process easier to absorb. Let’s get started, shall we?

Making the Land

There’s a lengthy process to using this method to create a fantasy map. The first thing to do is go to Adobe Photoshop and create a new file. Give it whatever name you want for your world.

To create a fantasy map in Photoshop, use the settings of 2000 by 15000 pixels, 300 resolution per pixel inch. Also use RGB Color and 16 bit.

With the name done, let’s go through the set up. You’ll want to use a large number for the width and height, like a minimum of 2000-2500 pixels for the former and 1500-2000 for the latter. Be sure you have plenty of storage space on your computer. Use 300 resolutions pixels per inch, RGB Colors, and 16 bits. Have White as your background contents. That’s all you need to do so hit okay.

Now you’re in your workspace. At this point, you should have only the Background layer and it should be white.

Before we continue, lemme tell you a bit about the method we’ll be using as we’re about to use it. We’re going to use noise to create a world and convert it to a black-and-white image that we’ll work to make a seamless world. The black-and-white image will be different for everyone, as the noise that Photoshop generates is different every time it’s selected. The beauty of this method is, once you get the hang of it, it gets easier and you start to really enjoy how you can make landmasses quite similar to our world.

Ensure you have default foreground and background colors. Now, create a new layer and name it Ocean. Hide Background.

In Ocean, go to Clouds (Filter > Render) and select it. 

In Photoshop, noise is helpful in making a fantasy map. It's filled with shades between black and white.

Duplicate the layer and name it Land.

Create a new layer and name it Outline. Now go to Fill Layer (Edit > Fill). In the Fill textbox, next to Contents use 50% Gray. Keep Blending as is and hit okay. Set the Blending to Hard Mix.

A mixture of black and white helps establish the foundations of creating a fantasy map.

In Outline, go to Brush Tool. Go to the brush icon at the top of the screen and select a hard round brush from General Brushes. Set the hardness to 0%. At the top of the screen, use 10% Flowing and 0% Smoothing. Important: Before you brush, you need to know that white represents land and black water. Water here applies to only oceans, seas, and lakes, not rivers, so don’t worry about rivers just yet. Switch (‘x’) between the two colors as you need and work on it until you have a shape of land you’re happy with!

Now merge the two layers (Outline and Land).

To make a fantasy map, in Photoshop, paint the white and black colors to make land and water, respectively.

Go to Color Range (Select > Color Range). In the Color Range textbox, set the fuzziness to 1 and click okay. You don’t need to do anything else. This creates a selection. Use Inverse (Select > Inverse). Press delete and deselect.

In Photoshop, removing the black in a making a fantasy map helps unveil the noise in the layer beneath to create a variation of water for the ocean layer.

You’re now done making the shape of your land! We move onto the next step, adding the ocean!

The Ocean/Coast

The Ocean

Oceans add a splash of color to a fantasy map. It doesn’t require a lot of steps to create one. The process is simple and doesn’t take up a lot of time.

Hide Land. Select Ocean. In Ocean, add a color overlay style and choose a blue color. Adjust the opacity if you want more or less texture.

The Coastline

To make a coastline, create a new layer and name it Coastline. Make a selection out of Land and go over to Select > Modify > Expand. Expand it by 10 pixels. While it’s selected, choose a light blue color and use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill it. Deselect it and that’s it!

Unhide Land. That’s all for the Ocean section.

Coastlines mark the point where land and water meet. A light blue is used to denote the coastlines.

Adding the Biomes

Biomes

You now have the rough outline of your fantasy map. Before proceeding, make sure you’re happy with everything because if you want to make changes later, it’ll require a great deal of work to fix. Going forward, we’ll add environments to the map

It’s a good idea to separate each environment type by giving each its own layer so you don’t have to worry about messing up your work.

Each biome is represented by a color:

            • Grasslands/Plains: Light Green
            • Mountains/Hills: Brown
            • Rivers/Streams: Light Blue
            • Forests: Dark Green
            • Swampland: Green-Brown
            • Desert: Light yellow
            • Tundra: White
The default color of white for land is changed to a light green.

In Land, use the Paint Bucket Tool and select a green color to fill it.

Create a new layer and name it Hills. Ensure your foreground/background have default colors. In Brush Tool, use a brush set at 3 pixels to draw hills.

Make a new layer and name it Mountains. Use the same brush with the same settings to make mountains. Remember to have mountains running in a northern-southern direction.

In Hills, add a color overlay style and choose a brown color. Feel free to adjust the opacity. Do the same for Mountains.

Create new layers for Desert and Tundra, respectively. Using the Brush Tool, paint the areas where you want them to appear with the right colors. Deserts and Tundra are opposite of each other, so they should be on opposite sides of the continent. Be sure to have transition colors between the biomes.

In a fantasy map, green represents grass/plains, white tundra, and yellow desert.

You might have accidentally brushed outside the land (who among us hasn’t at this point?). Luckily, there’s a simple fix! Click the thumbnail of Land to load a selection. Inverse it (Select > Inverse). Delete the selection and deselect it. Whew! We’re finally done with this section so we can move on!

Rivers/Streams

One part of a fantasy map is the river system. To start, create a new layer and name it Rivers Guide. Set your foreground/background colors to the default. Lower the opacity to 50% and go to Pencil Mode. Set your pencil to 10 pixels and use black to draw your rivers. Be sure to have them meander as they flow away from mountains and higher elevations to the ocean or lower elevations.

Now, create a new layer and name it Rivers. Keep the opacity at 100%. Using the Brush Tool, set the pixel size to 5 and go ahead and trace what you drew in the Rivers Guide with a black color.

Rivers are marked blue in a colored fantasy map.

When you’re done, add a color overlay layer to Rivers and select a shade of light blue. Set the opacity to around 70%.

That’s all for Rivers!

Forests/Swampland

Forests and swamps are an integral part of a fantasy map. They have their own ecosystems that play an important role in the world.

Make a new layer and name it Forest. Draw it where you want them to be. Trees like to be near water and mountains, so place them near rivers and other bodies of water. Ensure your foreground/background have default colors. To draw a forest, go to Pencil Tool and set your brush to 5 pixels.

When you’re done, add a color overlay style and give a dark green color.

Forests are found near water sources in a map.

Create a new layer and name it Swampland. Ensure your foreground/background have default colors. Use the same brush settings you used in the Forest layer. Draw shapes where you want them to be and then add some short dashes inside. Don’t forget, swamps tend to be nearby water areas. Swamps are a mixture of green and brown so have the shape be green and the dashes brown.

Colored brownish-greenish, swamps are located near water.

Create a new group (Layer > New > Group) and name it Biomes. Put every biome layer in Biomes. Collapse it.

Adding Cities, Castles, and Roads

With the biomes all added, now’s the time to decide where your cities/towns and castles will go. A fantasy map needs to have places where people live! Cities and towns are usually found in close proximity to rivers or other bodies or water and castles/fortresses can be found just about anywhere.

Create a new layer and name it Cities. Set your foreground/background colors to the default and go to Pencil Tool. Set your brush to a size of 10 pixels. Use dots to represent cities and towns. Cities are typically located near sources of water and woodlands.

Make a new layer and name it Castles. To create them, you could draw one manually, or use a dot to to signify them. Castles can be placed anywhere on the map, so feel free to put them where you want them! Set your brush size to 6 pixels.

Create a new layer and name it Roads. Set your brush size to 5 pixels and draw a solid black line to link cities and castles to each other and so on. Roads don’t run in a straight line, they curve.

Cities are marked with black dots, castles designed with a castle icon, and roads with a solid black line.

Naming everything in your world is one of the last things to do. Go over to the Horizontal Typing Tool and using it, click it next to what you want to name. You can customize the font, shape, the script used. If you want to warp your text, just hover your mouse over to the T over a curve icon at the top of the screen. In the Warp Text box, click the Style and browse the options. Experiment with these options to see what you like!

Text is used to give places names in maps.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully made a colored fantasy map! You ought to be proud of yourself, for you’ve taken a great step in making the world of your dreams.

Tying it all Together

Designing a fantasy map from scratch is no easy feat. It takes a bit of time but the payoff is worth it! In the end, you’ll have a fantastic map that you’ll love and want to show off!

Maps enrich the world you’re building from the ground up. They take you one step closer to making the world of your dreams!

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Thanks for reading this and until the next time,

Sunfire

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