Map Making

It occurs to me that there must be a dozen ways to make maps. I mean, there are all those great dungeon generators out there, and terrain generators.
But me, I take the old-school approach. So I'm going to tell you about old school.

I generally use graph paper. Two reasons: one, I always intend to do my maps in varying scales, and graph paper makes that a ton easier; two, it's much, much easier for me to lay down terrain on a graph-paper type format, because it lets me "count" how many squares of mountains or whatever.
Drawbacks to the graph paper method is that the terrain does come out kind of "blocky" later, and sometimes so do things like coastlines, roads, and rivers. But it's a flaw I can live with.

The first step is always a line drawing. I get a pencil, and my graph paper, and just scribble. I usually have some vague idea in mind when I start. Vague as in - "oh, well, a big central continent with three island archipelago type things, and an inland sea, and a great big semi-enclosed sea like the Aegean." Then, once I've got a lightly-sketched continent, and I'm happy with the outlines, I re-draw, darkening the lines I want. I add in squiggles for coastlines, and more or less decide as I'm doing so where the major mountain ranges are going to be.

Next, I take this line drawing to a window, along with some tape and a blank piece of white unlined paper. I tape the outline up, and transfer it to the blank paper, giving me a line drawing I can scan in later. (This is a relatively new step, but it's one I intend to keep.) Yes, I could do this with a light-box, if I had one, but I don't and I'm not yet ready to make one for myself. I don't know where I'd keep such a thing, anyway. But this step means I don't have to scan in a fully colored map with graph lines, and try to magic away the graph lines in Photoshop.

Now, with my simple outline in hand, I go back to my drawing table (i.e. my desk). I set the plain outline to the side, since it's done for the moment. The graph paper copy gets terrain now, which I sometimes use some random rolls for - "ok, 2d6 squares worth of swamp..." - but sometimes I just let my hand wander, and doodle in some mountains here, some forest over there. Happy little trees!

Once I've got that done, I usually do the rivers last. This is because I've found that waiting until I've got some clue about the mountains means I don't end up with a line that makes a fantastic looking river running clean over some foothills, where the stream would have to flow uphill then downhill, several times. Not a mistake I've made since I was, like, fourteen - but still very embarrassing to make that mistake and then bring my "masterpiece" map to a convention game!

All the terrain penciled in, I now begin color. I use map colors, lately the cheaper ones. They are acceptable, if not as saturated as the more expensive (meaning Prismacolor) pencils.
Coloring terrain is simple enough; I have specific colors for three "heights" of mountains, for swamps, for forest, for pine forest, for tundra/glaciated terrain, for desert, for scrubland, for grassland. I have little symbols for different terrain as well, so the two go together nicely.
Once colored, the map is done, for that scale. I label it and get it in a folder, sheet protector, or whatever else I need.

Then, it's on to scale maps. This is always enlargements, and can be only a few "panels" - making a one-page continental map into a four-page map - or it can end up being a "book" - i.e. going from a 600-miles-per-square map to a 25-miles-per-square map. In all cases, I delineate for myself the boundaries of the new scale, so I know which "squares" are going to be on the new page.
Then, the process begins again, this time with boundaries drawn round the edges of my smaller-scale maps. I frequently use a large-square graph system, similar to what you see in an atlas or road map, so that I can keep track of where I am.

And as I am happily sketching, drawing, and coloring these scale maps, I'm usually also making notes about the lands, the people, the kingdoms and cultures that enrich the area, and make it a place, not just a picture.
It is true that this process could be simplified somewhat by going digital – starting with a line drawing on blank white paper, and scanning it in. Once scanned, I could then manipulate everything about the map – even using grid lines if I want – and place as much detail as I desire into the thing, enabling much simpler (and possibly quicker) map making.
But, the old school way gives me a lot of time to think about the world I am building, and that’s very important to me. The smell of ink and pencil and the feeling of satisfaction as I finish a page of scaled-up map are also very important things to me. Sure there are easier, maybe even better ways. But hand drawn maps have their own special sort of magic, and that’s not something I can get back if I use purely digital methods to produce the artwork.