Fantasy Forest map by a total beginner

[JohnD]

Hi all,

I'm new to these lands and generally new to the world building/map drawing hobby, so please bear with me if I don't use the correct terms.

I've had this idea for a couple of weeks of drawing this fantasy forest map, but from what I've generally seen my concept is a bit different. All forests I've seen (and I've gone through quite a bit of maps on Reddit, this forum and other sources) have either been in very small scale (like they give you the idea that you could travel one side to the other in half an hour at most) or they were part of continent sized maps and therefore lack almost any detail, bar maybe the random elven capital.

As mentioned, my setting would be some sort of fantasy, maybe trending towards a grimdark tone similar to what you'd get in Warhammer Fantasy, with similar tech (but less gunpowder and more bows and crossbows), all sorts of monsters (werewolves, unicorns, dragons, trolls, etc.) and a few different races among the classic major ones (elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, etc.).

The forest I have in mind would be a starting point in a bigger world, in my mind I see this forest as part of one of the human kingdoms or on border of one, therefore you'd have a lot of features relating to a human civilization such as a couple of villages - a fishing village near a lake perhaps and a hunting village deeper into the forest - maybe a tavern or two on the opposite sides of the forest where travellers can rest and buy some supplies before travelling through it, a hermit living in a cave somewhere, a convent and/or the ruins of one plus the cemetery, a wizards tower and/or the ruins of one, maybe a mercenary and/or bandit camp, a hunting hut, maybe on the outskirts of the forest some homesteads/farms, small shrines at crossroads.

As far as natural features I can imagine the forest being a very "dark" forest, dense with a lot of trees and little light that shines through in most areas, but with glades where you can see the sky, small rivers or streams that can form waterfalls, maybe the random cave here and there used as shelter for bears or other animals, or nests for giant spiders and similar monsters.

In terms of roads I would have one main road crossing the forest, possibly this road splits into two at some point with one side being more direct and the other taking a wider berth, maybe sign of how things were different in previous times. I'm planning tons of smaller roads connecting the different features, different sizes for the roads and paths. For instance, I can imagine that the road to and from a village would be wide enough for a small cart, enough to allow the villagers to carry products to the main road and from there to other towns for trade. The rest of the paths could be more or less clear, some of them will be used more by hunters, merchants, animals or whoever, while some of them might just be about to be overgrown with bushes and plants.

While drawing sketches I found that I liked the idea of having a couple of lakes, one bigger than the other and maybe a swampier area, with a lot of smaller ponds, streams and wet patches.

I'm telling you all this to give you an idea of what I want to draw/build.

Now, to the issues. I'm using Wonderdraft and my first results were satisfactory to my beginner self, with some exceptions: I can't seem to find the right symbols for everything (or almost anything to be fair) that I need. Some of the default ones I do like, but unfortunately there might just be 4-5 of them in total, of which I only really need one) and definitely don't offer much in the terms of variety. I went through cartography assets but I can't seem to find anything that fits from there either. For example, I draw the map basics - I start with the rivers and lakes, then the roads and then I would like to fill the map with trees and here the trouble starts. With some of the symbols I found if I go overboard it just looks like a mess, but on the otherhand if I don't use enough it just doesn't look like a forest. If I manage to get a satisfactory result with threes then I need to find symbols for the various features and they need to match atleast in a general sense, the tree style. I mean, I can't really make a coloured map and use only black symbols for villages/houses/convents/huts/taverns, right? I think I wouldn't mind having to make the symbols myself although it's something new but I've never done it and have no clue where to start to be honest.

That said, I would also like to put some text, or maybe just a small blank slate so that if the map was used for some game players could fill it in themselves, but how to do that when the scale of the map would make it hard? Maybe the addition of a legend or list of symbols with explanations?

Any help with these issues would be much appreciated and any other comments, criticism or ideas relating to my plans are welcome aswell!

Again, sorry if I don't use terms correctly or some things are hard to understand, some of them I have a hard time explaining myself.

The maps I've attached are more or less what I've been trying to do, using different styles and at different stages.

[eepjr24]

Well, I'll give a shot at answering some of your questions. Let me say that I don't know Wonderdraft at all, but I have worked with a couple map making / cartography programs years ago. Currently I am using GIMP.

First, I think scale is a problem you are struggling with. You want the forest to be detailed, but lack a variety of tree elements (symbols) to make it interesting without being muddled. Is that correct?

If so, then I see a couple of options (and likely the skilled folks here will provide more).

1. Find more detailed elements to compliment those you already have. There are many sources of these, including this page, DeviantArt (https://www.deviantart.com/search?q=trees), or just plain old google. Deviant art also has tutorials on how to draw the trees yourself (same search).

2. Go more abstract with your forests. A couple examples here from Neyjour (https://www.deviantart.com/neyjour/a...s-73-538603609) and Josh Stolarz (https://mapeffects.co/tutorials/forests).

I prefer the second route at the scale you are looking at and then the first route for smaller maps that players will interact with during battles and the like.

- Ernie