Looking for a large map at A1 size , scale: (1 inch = 16 miles)

[Tiana]

Your map looks fine, and considering you want control to edit it in the future, I think you should have some faith in your own skills. To make it look more like the map you linked you'll just need to tint the mountains layer with something other than black. So a layer mask over that layer set to screen or overlay, and then a layer over everything with a parchment paper set to overlay. Like we can give you some advice here for you to get what you've made the rest of the way. You're more than halfway there. This map is better than 99% of client sketches I've ever seen.

If you're positive you want to commission art, I mean yeah, some of us would help.

I don't do commissions where I provide the full layers. For 1, it's impossible, there is not a single Photoshop file that would make any sense. I use multiple programs and you would need all of those programs with assets set up in the correct folders, some of which are purchased stock items that you don't have the licence to use but I do. I would have to make a map very specifically special for you to make it editable for you in a way that made sense for you. Unlike Kell I'm not worried about my 'technique being stolen', I am more than happy to explain how I got to any results here on the forum for the world to know. It's just impossible for me to legally provide a means to manipulate my work in a meaningful fashion when I've spent decades building up a bank of paid stock art and the license is for me. No one wants to dump an additional $50 on stock art packs to be allowed to own the layers, and my layers tend to be made up of like a sandwich of 50 different textures with work from dozens of sources from multiple stock art sources so it would be an enormous pain. That's why I will only provide text and city point of interest icons as an editable or png option, everything else gets merged.

Certainly I can plan for text to be editable, and I can also make all city/location markers editable, but all the rest of it gets merged. I also do future edits to text and points of interest that need adding or removing due to in world events, for modest fees lower than the creation of a new map.

But yeah, there are several people in this business who have made the agreement you want only to find their work slightly changed being sold or presented as someone else's portfolio piece. So, while you feel uncomfortable having fixed art, we have discomfort not knowing what's happening to our art. Even without giving layers our art gets stolen. Most of us have dealt with it and will continue to throughout our careers as a consequence of having our art on the internet.

If you want to be able to edit your art... and you feel uncomfortable not being able to edit your art... I really think you should keep pushing your own creation forward. You've gotten so close to finishing it.

You just need to add lakes (your rivers look fine), location points of interest, text, a fancy frame, a ribbon or cartouche, a compass, and most importantly, some texture sandwiching. For the borders of the countries, draw them with an airbrush or marker, or do vector lines if you want them to look flawless, or set the blend mode to overlay.

Switch out the mountains you scaled up for mountains that are already that large, or make a new mountain by stacking a few and erasing the right places if none of the pieces in the brush set are large enough by default to fix the pixelation on it.

When you do the text, give it an outline stroke in the color of the base canvas.

And that'll do it. Honestly I feel very confident you can finish this map and maintain editability to your standards with what I see here. The river looks really good and so does the shoreline. If you don't want to make your own compass, frame or ribbons all of those can be found in the assets section here or on other stock art sites too. Here's a free ribbon you could use. https://pixabay.com/vectors/banner-r...anner-3284786/

And I made this free compass for a challenge you could use if you wanted.



And you can do a basic frame by doing the same echo-stroke you did for the shoreline, except around the edge of the frame. Make a blank layer, select all, shrink the selection and do a stroke on that. Do that a few times and get creative with the fill and clipping things to the fill.

That's really all it'll take to finish it. The only thing that looks off to me is the pixelated mountain and the way you did the country borders. Like the coast and the effect in the water around it looks great, the fill isn't too cluttered so it's easy to read, and your river has good energy. You should make a WIP thread and ask any questions and we'll get you through it that way!

[- Winter -]

I have been told in the past that 150dpi is the minimum, else text will start to suffer and maybe even at 150. That being said, I am happy to add in text myself and I won't need help with that which also removes licensing issues.

Having thought about it some more, I would like some room for edits for things like vegetation and rivers in the longer term, and potentially also for terrain if I decide an important hill is here, or a lake over there.

I will have a think about what you've said, Tiana. My biggest frustration has been that, as I've drawn finer details, I have a Wacom One tablet (not the display version) and I can't seem to translate angles onto the screen as I want them, and all my mountains end up with a weird upwards flick (hence my use of a brush tool which just stamped them all in, which I resorted to after many hours of going 'nah, I don't like that' to my freehand work). I also just don't know how to convey "this area is a wetlands" in a way that I also find aesthetically pleasing - see my current hodgepodge of a wetlands which I made by rendering some clouds and difference clouds and then ramming a Levels adjustment layer up to make it a bunch of random squiggles.

My thinking with paying someone was that whilst I believe I could learn to do this better, and I already know my way around Photoshop reasonably well enough to get somewhere eventually.. I value my time. Just as I value the time and amazing work of the artists here who will be happy for me to pay them (I hope!) to do it better than I would do. If I charge myself the same rate I do in my own creative commissions, it's more expensive for me to make my own map (though it's offset, of course, by also being """paid""" for that time by myself - and developing a skill).

Thank you for everybody who has commented or messaged me. At the moment I am still happy to look at portfolios and consider work, but... Yeah, you amazing people have given me bits to chew on (and I'm now eyeing up the Wacom One Display tablet... My partner shall be thrilled).