Fantasy Maps in Photoshop Part II: Terrain Features

Learn to draw Fantasy Maps in Adobe Photoshop with Daniel Hasenbos from Daniels Maps.

Do you want to improve your Fantasy Cartography skills, or not sure how to get started? In this 47 minute class we are going to explore how to use the basic tools of Adobe Photoshop to create a solid base for your very own Fantasy Map! Make sure you've also watched Part I of this series!

In this class we continue working on the map that we started in my first class: Fantasy Maps in Photoshop Part I: Coastlines. I'll assume that you know your away around the basics of Adobe Photoshop and you can follow along with most of the tools without in depth explanations of how they work. Are you not comfortable enough with Adobe Photoshop yet? There's a lot of classes on Skillshare that'll help you familiarize yourself with the program!

What Will You Learn?

• Mountain Styles: In this lesson I'll show a couple of different ways that you can draw mountains and we'll discuss how to decide which style suits your map. I'll show examples of mountains drawn in isometric style, from a ridgeline, and top-down mountains.
• Drawing Mountains: We'll go over my process of drawing mountains on my maps. I'll share some of my ideas of what looks good and what doesn't.
• Rivers: Now we'll take a look at your rivers. How do they flow, and how to you draw them? You'll also learn some basic rules to keep in mind when laying out your river systems.
• Forest Styles: You'll learn a couple of ways of drawing forests. We'll also learn ways to show different kinds of forests: coniferous, deciduous and jungles and in different styles: single trees, grouped trees and top-down trees.
• Drawing Forests: Now it's time to put your forests on your map. We'll discuss how to make the forests interact with the mountains and rivers, and also where they'll grow..
• Terrain Features: Now that we've got all our terrain features in place it's time to show the terrain types in between them. In this lesson we'll add some texture to your grassland, desert, swampy and barren areas to help viewers understand what's what.

Whether you are an illustrator or simply want to create a fantasy map out of personal interest, this class will get you ready to pick up your idea and turn it into something great!

• Introduction
• Mountains Styles
• Drawing Mountains
• Rivers
• Forest Styles
• Drawing Forests
• Terrain Textures
• Final Thoughts