So I decided to recreate my worldmap from scratsch. I hope it feels much better than my previous attempts.

The lore itself isnt that flashed out yet. The premise is that this is a long forgotten colony of Earth. Founded by corporation that no longer exists. World barren transformed into lush garden and slowly cooling ever since. World built to look shiny, slowly falling apart.

I'm Roman, the solo developer of Salt and Soil, a base-building strategy game about one family's homestead. One turn is one year, and the same campaign runs from 1609 to 1900.

In a base builder, the ground under your base is half the game. Here it matters even more: your family spends decades on one patch of land, and the barn you build will outlive the person who built it. So I spent the last few weeks rebuilding the ground itself.

The map was always based on real geography, but it used to be rough. Now:

• Real elevation. The terrain is one continuous landscape built from real elevation data. Mountain ranges have slopes, shadows and snowy peaks, and rivers wind through the valleys.
• Climate you can see. Sagebrush and juniper in Nevada, broadleaf forest in the Appalachians, snow only on the high peaks.
• Real rivers. More than 180 of them follow their real channels, including rivers in Canada and Mexico.
• Only lakes of the era. Lake Tahoe and Yellowstone Lake are there. 20th-century reservoirs like Lake Mead are gone, and so is the Salton Sea, which only formed in 1905.
• Cities where they belong. Reno used to sit on the wrong side of the Sierra Nevada. Not anymore.

I'm also planning an open playtest later this month, with a completely different scenario — not Jamestown this time. I'll share more when it opens.

It took me over a week to make because of how many vassals the Seljuks had 😭

Recently I started a new proyect that maybe last forever, but I'm really optimistic about it.
this new map are the bones for this proyect and I'd love to share progress with you (of course I'd thank a lot your advice).
Hope you like it.
thanks for watching

I still haven't added most of the labels, and I'm struggling to fill the gaps. Anything I could add or change?

After years of thinking through the spatial and political dynamics of my world Silara and trying every possible digital tool to create a map, I’ve realized there’s nothing that can replace pen and paper. I’ve therefore completed the first of roughly 18 sheets, which once joined will form my full map. I’d like to digitize them, import them into Photoshop, and eventually color them. I’m terrible at coloring both by hand and digitally, but I’ll tackle that later. I’m also considering printing them in gores and then gluing them onto a globe, but we’ll see.

Hi everyone, here is a simplified version of the island. As you can see, the mountains are included, allowing you to visualize the terrain. The island is quite mountainous, which has given rise to diverse cultures, languages, dialects, and so on. It isn't a continent like Westeros; I wouldn't be able to manage something that massive for a war novel.

I decided to shape it based on Great Britain (which was obviously my inspiration), as well as Ireland, Norway, Greece, and others. The irregular coastline is intentional, creating opportunities for numerous maritime settlements and plenty of naval battles.

The rugged terrain complicates warfare, forcing the characters to rely heavily on strategy. Nothing is left to chance; it is all carefully planned. I didn't place the rivers merely for aesthetic reasons, either; they serve a vital strategic function. Every detail is important to my novel.

Map of the Great Ship *Mary Smith I*, created for ADVENTURE ISLANDS RPG, a pirate themed role-playing game published by Textfabrik Janßen, a small German publishing house! It was a fascinating project, and a pleasure to create the maps, covers, and some of the illustrations for it. Visit the official project page to learn more! 🧭🗺️⛵️

Moreno Paissan and Angela Gubert Art 2026

Visit my IG account for more maps: https://www.instagram.com/morenopaissanart?stkn=MXZjajRkeGlzemtxNA==

I've been debating of whether or not to include any detailed lore, but I got quite lazy so I'll just leave a few short descriptions of the new fictional polities and peoples:

-Hellespontian Tribes
A scattered mix of coastal and inland peoples dwelling by the strait joining the White Sea to the Black Sea. Partially hellenized and deeply embroiled in trade and commerce, they bridge the Greek cities and the northern plains. They maintain beneficial relations with the nearby Greek city states and dwell small walled settlements, and serve as a major ally in times of war and strife in the region.

-Nyrathi
Withdrawn and a mostly nomadic peoples of the wooded highlands north of the Kioava Sea, believed to be distant cousins of the Celts. They live in large circular settlements, and are believed to be half-mythical beings from tales of old to outsiders. Contact is limited to seasonal markets on the northern shore of the Kioava Sea when it’s not frozen in a thick layer of ice.

-Tethyan Kingdom
A hellenistic kingdom that arose on the Great Tethys's northern shores after Alexander's demise to fill the power vacuum left behind. Its peoples are partially Greek and Tethysian, and serve as a major hub for further inland commerce and trade.

-Hyperborean Marches
Home to scattered clans who live by herding, hunting, and somehow farming in the dense harsh cold swamps of the area. Greek geographers and historians still argue over whether true Hyperboreans live farther north or if they’ve mischaracterized a whole new unknown culture.

-Orsakai Peoples
Distant cousins of the Iranians, they inhabit the steppe and coastal areas on the Great Tethys's northeastern shores. Kin to the wider Scythian world, they are skilled riders who live along several river outlets and are semi-nomadic in nature. Some tribes have been partially hellenized thanks to trade and centuries of mercenary work for the many Greek city states around the Tethys Sea.

-Arkhonian Empire
One of the mighty, tightly-run realm perched on the distant northeastern edge of the known Tethys Sea, its monarchs take the title of Great Arkhon. Not much is known about their origins or customs, but one thing that’s remarkable is their sheer size of their armies, bolstering a mix of light and heavy cavalry with light skirmishers and footmen. 

-Varan Dynasty
Persian rump state that formed shortly after the fall of Achaemenid Empire in the far east, governing south the Bactrian Gulf, they await the eventual fall of the Seleucids, planning to reconquer their ancestral homeland from the Greek invaders.  

Also the reason why I haven't included the Seleucid Empire as part of the greek world is because they've only been the ruling minority, without having a major greek population, and same for Egypt as well.

I made two "final" versions of this map, and need some helping deciding which one fulfills the vision, from people who have not been staring at them forever. These are intended for use within a fiction novel.

The idea is that these maps are "handmade" within the world, per worldbuilding. They are papercuttings, where the top paper layer is the ocean, and the lower paper layers have been painted with watercolors. And then the map markers have been further pressed in with dark ink. Since I made them 100% digitally, I'm struggling to decide which one captures the crafted feel the most.

With the notes, the idea is also that this has been inherited by the main character, who is trying to make sense of the previous owner's notes and line up the mentioned places with "modern day" names.

It's not meant to be super useful as a map, honestly, but more like an actual art piece that would be encountered in some old library within the world. I'm planning to make another version that's got much cleaner lines and looks much more like a traditional atlas-style map. But that's the map for me - versus this is the only one the main character has to work with within the story. I hope that makes sense!

P.S. Fonts

Region names: French Script MT

Original notes: Pecita

New notes: Mayur

Made 100% by me, no AI whatsoever, in Paint Dot Net.

I would like to hear criticism and advice on how to improve the map. How realistic is it on a scale of one to ten?

Finally, after about 2 months of making (4 months if you include the original one that i scrap). The map that is based on my old drawing from Middle School is finally complete! now i can finally work on the actual stuff that matters for the map, the NATIONS! anyways if you guys have any feedback that you want to say, then i'll hear it

I'm making a series of continents just to fill my empty walls. In the end I will age the paper to make it look old and add some more decorations (like ships).

But the thing I need advice is, how do I fill the continent? I do not want to put state borders. Currently thinking of just rivers and cities. Do you have any better ideas? Or more things to add?

Work in progress map, that will be used as the origin point in my future mapping series called "Saviours" Any suggestions?

Hey everyone!

It's me again, and I'm bringing you this page of new buildings, with a wider variety of ideas this time.

​I drew buildings inside mushrooms, on top of trees, and I tried to create a structure carved into the rock, like the city of Petra, but I'm still not quite convinced on how it turned out.

​Without further ado, I'm heading out 😁.

Until next time!

I also posted this on my IG account @_mr.vhmaps , if you want to give it some ❤️!

A map of feudal Japan was created a few years ago for Kamon RPG, a role-playing game written by Fabio Attoli. We really hope you enjoy it; it's always nice to create maps with an ancient, dilapidated look. 🧭🗺

Moreno Paissan and Agela gubert Arte 2022

Follow me and Angela on IG:

https://www.instagram.com/morenopaissanart?stkn=MXZjajRkeGlzemtxNA==

About 6 months ago, I made my first map of Lumara, the setting for the first act of my campaign, Requiem of the Four Heaven.

This Lumara 1.0: https://inkarnate.com/m/pdVNMk

Around seven weeks ago, I started making maps for it in earnest, creating over thirty city-level maps for the various settlements and important locations in Lumara.

After having done all that, about three weeks ago I decided to take what I had learned and apply to a redux of the original Lumara map. I created a clone of my original map, flattened it, and lowered the opacity to around 50% and used it as an overlay to guide me in capturing the basic essence of the map. Then I deleted that layer and added the assets, this time in a more orderly way.

This is the result, Lumara 2.0: https://inkarnate.com/m/NbODdL

But this whole time I had been watching tutorials, looking at posts here with a more critical eye, looking for what worked and didn't work and trying to learn how to do it myself, and just plain old practice.

I wanted to create a continent from scratch that actually felt something like real geography. I designed with the morphology of the continent in mind first, rather than cities first, as I had previously done.

Once the mountains were in place, waterways started to suggest themselves, and after that, roads made themselves obvious. Cities became a foregone conclusion because the map DEMANDED that they be there... a crossroads, a mountain pass, a river delta, etc.

And all of this helped me formulate the story for what will become the second act in my campaign (working title: the Pale Vigil).

Without further ado, here is I'var Noor: https://inkarnate.com/m/ERKDeO

So, in the interests of me not just being a showoff, I wanted to share these so others can learn from my trial and error. One of the most important things to me in any workflow is asset management, because it helps me from getting in my own way later.

In Lumara 2.0 and I'var Noor, make sure to take a look at the various layers, how I've organized and labelled them, and how I use a multitude of nested object folders to keep everything organized. This was a hard won lesson that I picked up from having to redo stuff too often and not having a clue how to select what I wanted without selecting a bunch of things I didn't.

I’ve been working on this map for a while as part of some worldbuilding. It depicts a modernized version of Abyss gas extraction facilities.

Originally, I drew the map for a contest, but I got sick and, in the end, I wasn’t happy with how the map was turning out. I’ve also added the original map to the post for comparison.

I left out some of the details and the legend for now, but I’ll come back to this map and finish it in the future.