So I redid one of the rivers, added some mountain passes, and marked a couple possible sites for large urban areas. The westernmost mountain pass would be heavily guarded against incursion by the forces of the Necromaster, while the eastern pass would be important to trade through the Big City to and from the Eastern Empire. I feel like I'm just about ready to put pencil to hexpaper. Thanks again for all the great comments!
If you use a vector graphing program like CorelDRAW, Adobe, etc make sure you use layers, A LOT!
ReplyDeleteI use the following in order from top to bottom
Key
River
Settlements
Road
Terrain (Mountains,Hills,etc)
Coast
Hexes
Hex Numbers
Vegetation (Woods, swamps, etc)
The important thing is you want your text over the hexes. You want lines over the hexes (coastlines, roads, borders, etc). You want filled stuff (woods, swamps) UNDER the hexes.
If you are hand drawing it, Staples now has drafting supplies. There is a nice set of 3 drafting markers for $10 or so that has a range of tips. I always used the smallest pen size myself. They have color pencils as well as coloring stick. Note that a coloring stick is the same thing as a coloring pencil but in a stick with no wood around it. It useful for coloring a large area of color.
Plus when you make your final map, don't forget put the occasional hill between river systems. You don't need to do this in every case but you are going to be filling a really big sheet of hexes so it helps to break up the map and make it look more natural.
ReplyDeletePlus you may want a few plains or open areas. On Judges Guild system maps there no symbol other than the name printed on the map. It was assumed that the hexes touching the name were open grassland. The exception was the northwest corner of Map 1 (Old Map 9).
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ReplyDeleteLt. Commander Montgomery Scott: It's ... green.
ReplyDeleteNot so ... green, please.
The real deal map won't be green. I'm hand drawing it on an old Judges Guild blank hexmap. They're this awesome cream color with a nifty pebbled texture.
ReplyDeleteI wish I can figure out where to buy that paper. Not the judges guild map themselves but the paper so I can print maps of different designs on it.
ReplyDelete