There comes a time in almost every fantasy writer’s life when we have to make a map. They can be kind of a pain and they take forever to make. Since my funds are limited, I couldn’t hire someone to do it for me. So, I did research. I pulled out all my fantasy books and checked out the maps.
The one in R.A. Salvatore’s book, Homeland, is close to what I wanted.
Most of the action in my first book, The Sciell, takes place around one area- Raesul (Ray-sul), so this is the map that’ll go with it.
The colors are just for fun. It’s gonna be black and white in the book. I created this using stock photos, Photoshop and Illustrator.
The trees and grass are stock photos from 123RF. I just cut and pasted them. For the buildings, I had to find a picture of a house I liked…
Opened it in Illustrator and, using the pen tool, traced over the picture to create this vector:
Then, I opened the file in Adobe Photoshop and moved it into my map.
Here’s a video on how to create a vector:
Tips for Tracing with Illustrator
Adobe Creative Suite may be expensive, but it’s awesome! Transferring images from Illustrator to my map in Photoshop was so easy.
The map for the second book is going to be nightmare. I have to make a digital version of this:
Don’t know how I’m going to do it, but it’ll be fun.
Here’s a site that gave me inspiration for my map:
A Fantasy Reader: Index of Maps
