# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > General and Miscellaneous Mapping >  The world of Vallone.

## Strado

With the exams finally behind me, I've taken up my first Adobe Photoshop mapping project in an attempt to help immerse my players into the campaign I'm setting up for them next semester. In the interest of detail I've set up a map size that I can have printed out at A2 size, so that, eventually, adding large amounts of map locations can still be done without having the map appear as one claustrophobic mess of icons and symbols.

I realize that's not exactly the standard protocol for newbie map designers, and believe me when I say I am still very much a newcomer to all this, but I have a good deal of free time on my hands right now, so I figured why not capitalize on it and make something truly stunning. 

I started off on the world yesterday morning. Here's how far I've gotten since then, in between running errands and visiting friends.

http://i.imgur.com/J5rvCAt.jpg

I added an initial ocean-blue background (that I intend to edit/fine tune later on), plotted and added the landmasses and continents in an additional layer using the eraser tool (after filling the whole layer with a base colour), and then created a clipping group to add a parchment texture look to the landmasses. I'm still experimenting with the various layer effects, but I added outer glow to highlight the smaller islands/fjords in the North-Eastern corner of the map.

Please let me know what you think.  :Smile:  Comments, advice and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.  :Very Happy:  Also, apologies in advance if the link isn't working properly, in which case I'll fix it as soon as possible.

Regards

Strado

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## Viking

Nice! I like how you're making your entire world mostly a single continent! Hello Pangaea! Unless it's part of the world. Regardless, it's a nicely shaped landmass. Next are you onto mountains and then rivers/lakes?

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## Strado

Sorry for the late reply. Things have gotten a little out of hand on the home-front (nothing serious at least, but it's caused a bit of stall). I'm currently plotting out the various rivers and lakes on the map, yes. I'm a bit caught up between either going for realistic looking geography (something I've never done before) or going for a more "hand-sketched" look. That being said, I want to try and have the mountains blend with the backdrop created by the terrain, instead of just black, jutting spikes with shadows on the one side. But progress on that is... slow.  :Surprised: 

I still have much to learn about photoshop, so chances are this project will be stretching over the course of a few months, at least.

I'll update as soon as I've incorporated the rivers.

Thanks for the input. It's much appreciated.  :Smile: 

Regards

Strado

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