Cartography Help

[SeiferTim]

I'm sure some of the people here have played Warcraft III, or World Of Warcraft, and I was wondering if anyone knew anywhere I could look to get some tips on creating maps like they use. In Warcraft III they were the maps that were shown during the loading screens:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b30/SeiferTim/1027949835-00.jpg
and in World of Warcraft the World Maps are all nicely made, and detailed. I'm planning on working on a project where that sort of map would be perfect, but I don't know where to even start to learn how to make them - or something similar.
Any help would be great! :)

[iLikePie]

I don't have links to sites or anything, but i reckon you could get pretty close by just noting how they do it and adapting it to your style. Clearly it has to look old (= sepia tones and not so vivid colors), paper textured, probably painted or inked... and you can see in that one that the objects are kind of stylised, and that's a feature of most fantasy maps. Check out the ones in Lord of the Rings, for example, as they're also examples of the classic style.

I don't think there's a step by step way to do it, shouldn't really be necessary imo.

[SeiferTim]

Thanks, I'll play around a little bit... I wish I had more art in school... lol

[prstudio]

If you look at my Van Gogh style for the forums you'll see a somewhat similar effect. All done in photoshop, I did mine with my mouse at the time, using the oil pastel brush and keeping a mind out for colors. I found it easiest to start with base colors and then add on top of them to create depth.

:)

the things at the top and bottom were done with something sometimes called "flourishes" there was a thread on the forums about it a while back :)

[SeiferTim]

If you look at my Van Gogh style for the forums you'll see a somewhat similar effect. All done in photoshop, I did mine with my mouse at the time, using the oil pastel brush and keeping a mind out for colors. I found it easiest to start with base colors and then add on top of them to create depth.

Thanks, I'll take a look :)

the things at the top and bottom were done with something sometimes called "flourishes" there was a thread on the forums about it a while back :)

Yeah, I know that - I'm more concerned with the map itself, and not the decorations :beam: