How to Draw Rivers on an Isometric Map

This tip is a quick one. Isometric maps are fun, and can have a large impact. The side on view gives the option for more detail and a more illustrative style.

Rivers can break or make an isometric map. On a top down map, a rivers travel in all directions. On an isometric map they should travel further left to right, than up and down. If a river travels straight up and down on an isometric map it’ll look out of place. In the map above I’ve pulled the curves of the rivers further out when they travel left and right. This helps sell the idea that you’re looking down on the map from an angle. This, combined with the same trick on the coasts, can sell the perspective and foreshortening that the isometric map requires.

Free Isometric Grid Paper

Every week there’s a challenge on Google+ called the #fridayfiveminutemap challenge. This week the theme will be isometric. To give everyone a fighting chance, I’m offering a couple of resources for free.

Here’s a sheet of isometric grid paper. I’d assumed such a thing was easily available, but it seems not. Please feel free to take this and use it for whatever you like. I’ve also attached the .psd file with the grid on a separate layer so that you can get a little fancier with adding a grid to your digital maps.

Isometric graph paper for iso grid dungeons
Free isometric graph paper

If you want to dig a little further, I’ve put together a couple of tutorials on illustrating isometric maps:

How to Draw Icons – and a Free Ship!

Free Ship Icon for Pirate Maps
Free Ship Icon

At the start of the month I released the Iconic Island – a map pack with an island map and a load of individual map icons indicating things like castles, cities and ruins. Today I’m covering how to create your own icons. This is a slightly longer tutorial than normal and will cover some new Photoshop techniques, specifically using the pen tool, and more on layer blend modes. There’s also a video at the end of the tutorial to help illustrate the steps in more detail.

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The Weather Outside is Frightful

So a pretty hefty snow-dump just landed on NE and I’m inside looking out the window at a very white NYC. We were out last night and a friend was talking about his upcoming travels, to much warmer climes. So today I thought I’d buck the trend of all the snow pictures, and post a map set in the savannah:

Fantasy Savannah Camp map

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From the Archives – Ruined Keep

A while ago I was commissioned to illustrate a three story ruined keep, with a dungeon beneath, for Mongoose Publishing. This was in my pre-Photoshop days (2009). It makes me wince a bit to see the messiness of the linework in these, but they served their purpose for the job at hand, and looking at old work is a good way to gauge progress.

Images © Mongoose Publishing, reproduced with permission

St. George’s Island

St George's Island Map for Call of Cthulhu
St George’s Island

This is an old commission, created in Gimp for a Call of Cthulhu adventure. Why is it that Cthulhu adventures always seem to take place on isolated islands?

This is very desaturated compared to my more recent work, and I doubt I’d ever use that font again but it’s interesting seeing how a lot of the other features of the map remain very recognisable.

How to draw flagstones

This isn’t quite as formal as previous tutorials. After I created the tutorial for drawing water, I carried on and quickly coloured and shaded the flagstones. Here’s the video of that process, which fills in a lot of my standard working method – base colour and then a collection of overlay layers to add detailed light and shade.

How To Draw Water On A Map

It can be tricky to draw water on a map. You don’t want to fill areas with a flat blue, but you also don’t want to draw every wave and ripple. The trick is to strike a balance, and provide a visual shorthand that quickly sells the presence of water. When putting this together I was thinking about Mike Schley‘s water style (shown in this map).

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