Coloring the map and icons

[Qoff]

Hello guys, I'm new here and I'm thinking this forum awesome, but I'm newbie at this, this is my second map and I really liked the shape of it but the collors seems very silly to me, how can I improve it?

I want to make this map for a RPG story that I'm writing. I want a desert in the center of the continent, the north must have tons of snow, while the south a lot of forests, the west must have a lot of mountains and one of the islands must have a volcano.

How can I do something like that? http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...chmentid=39813

Also, how can I put nice icons in the map (something like cities, vilages, dungeons, roads, ports, etc).

[Diamond]

Welcome to the Guild, Qoff. I think you're on the right track; that map looks pretty good already. A couple of suggestions:
1. The temperate/desert/forest band in the middle looks really unnatural. Real world biomes aren't that even and neat.
2. I don't think the colors are 'silly', but they DO seem pale and washed out. I'm guessing you're using Photoshop? If that's so, what about creating a new layer (or two) over everything and putting in a texture or painting in some richer colors, then setting it to multiply or overlay? That way you get some better color, but it doesn't erase the detail work.

Icons are really subjective - everyone's got their own ideas of what looks good and what doesn't. For a map like this, with the subtle pastel tones (and even if you add in more vibrant colors), I'd say keep your icons pretty low-key, like just simple dots of different sizes for cities and towns, maybe a simple anchor for ports, etc.

[Qoff]

I want this map to have 6 regions:

- North (which will be a cold region).
- West (which will be something with a lot of mountains).
- Southwest (which will have mountains and forests).
- Southeast (which will have a lot of forests).
- The two islands on west (I want a volcano on one of them).
- Center east (which will have a desert and some forests at the far east).

I'm using photoshop and I'll try what you said! Thank you!