Hi peeps,

First off - Sorry if this is the wrong place to post first this (i read the guidelines and this seemed most appropriate) I'm new to forums, I just stumbled across this site and it seemed perfect for the help I need.

I have two questions/calls for advice, If I may:

I am not an artistic person, never have been but yesterday I started using photoshop for the first time. I am hoping to make several maps to enrich my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. As I am sure many of you will remember - photoshop is daunting to the new comer! I have watched several youtube videos and managed to come up with this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0e...ew?usp=sharing

(if your equally nerdy, you may recognize this as a simplified pathfinder map!)

I'm quite happy with it as I don't need at this stage to have the perfect map. I'm a start simple guy and work my way up. I do however have one question on this map. How do I make the waterways cooler? I have used brushes for most of the map. An easy way to get a nice effect but this makes all the parts I have done stick out like a saw thumb! Any ideas? That is deliberately a very open question as I am sure there are lots of things one could do but I am interested in learning as much as I can. SOmething to make it fit the rest of the map a little better or at least make it look a bit less like it was done by a child with a crayon.

The second question is a bigger one. I would like to do a city map. I have seen some gorgeous ones (many of which I have traced to this website) but I am really struggling for where to start. Here is are some examples of preferred styles:

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/156007574572683554/
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/156007574572683534/
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/156007574572683483/

So... Where do you even start! I have seen plenty of youtube tutorials on making continent/country maps but very few on city maps (that aren't just black squares) I have been hunting for brushes of Birdseye view buildings but no real luck. Can anyone give me an indication of how to start or where to go for good tutorials on how to do this sort of thing? I don't mind long tutorials and putting the work in I just need some help getting started.

Also how are they doing that cool grass effect? I like the way its stylized but looks realistic enough.

Last thing - I'm really sorry but I'm not an artist, I'm not a cartopgrapher and I'm not that tech savy but I'm a fast learner. Can I ask that you keep any advice really simple and where possible without the technical terminology - otherwise I will be baffled!

Thank you for reading! I hope this is the start of a long lasting new hobby

Kind regards

J