Drawing a Town Map (for D&D)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- A new adventure! Drawing a town or city is not that hard, and this guide can help.
Fantasy Mapmaker: How to Draw Cities & Towns - amzn.to/38lQteW
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For people living in many parts of Europe: if you want to know how a fantasy town should be laid out, just go outside.
I actually do that a lot,and it gave me some good inspirations in 1800-1900 era maps,since my town isn't that old,it was founded officially in 1524,and was first mentioned in an letter from a dude to the Voivod of wallachia,mentioning something about grains and wine produced here
So I approve to anyone that reads this comment wich is in europe,just go outside,it can help a lot
Google Maps is your friend :)
Dark Lord or south of France
@Dark Lord why not?
@@Masterryoshi06 why not?
What might help you:
- Most villages or cities started either at a river crossing or the crossing of big trade routes, so you can evolve your village from that starting point (a crossing). When the villages started to get more populated, the town square came as well.
- Terrain features are a thing, most roads follow the terrain, so if you got a good picture of the terrain in your mind, you get an idea of how to put the roads.
- The side roads evolved from the main roads to get more space for buildings.
- There are commonly farms or stuff like that laying a bit outside the village.
Just to add a few things:
- In general the center of any village, town or city has not only the market place, but also the church/temple. Since it's the most important building for the people and their believes. And in medieval times the tallest building and visible from afar.
- You would also have more than one tavern in a town, because brewing beer was very common because it was drunk instead of clear water due to its sterilising nature.
- Furthermore you would want canals in a town for crafts or mills. Little streams/rivulets should also be an option on a close-up map. A river isn't made of just one spring, but has many feeder rivers.
- Streets don't go that straight in medieval towns either. they're a bit curved. Especially in fortified towns. That has to do with how difficult you want to make it for attackers to conquer the town.
A few things more:
- Inns would be located near the centre of town in a small settlement, with more of them near the gates in larger towns to cater to travelers and merchants.
- Inns aren't taverns/public houses, although they often include one. Likewise, taverns aren't inns, they're restaurants.
- Any decently sized town will have one or more Guild Halls. They don't need to be near the market square (unless it's a merchant guild) but they will form the focal point for that type of industry in your town and include warehousing, so they can get pretty big.
- Towns will be surrounded by farming villages and won't have a forest near the walls, especially in a fantasy setting where monsters are known to live in woods. Essentially every town will be the centrepiece of a constellation of smaller settlements.
200rd like
I have never and probably will never play DnD, but somehow quarantine has brought me here
Dew It, play it at least once. I never thought I would and then I did just out of curiosity and it is now my favourite hobby. I wish I had started playing it before my 20s I feel like I've been missing out this whole time.
One note: the watermill shouldn't have any chimneys. The fear of dust explosions was well understood at the time, and you'd very rarely see any flames inside of a mill
Interesting. Thanks!
For anyone wondering about the dangers of a mill catching on fire, look up the flour mill explosion in Minneapolis.
I feel like this could provide an interesting mystery hook for, like, level 1 players. They’re (of course) in a tavern in a small farming village, when they suddenly hear a massive explosion. Someone has blown up the mill! The village’s main revenue was flour, so they fear their economy will suffer. So who blew up the mill?
Was it someone with a grudge against the miller? Someone intentionally trying to bankrupt the village? Was the miller part of a secret order that the BBEG wants to stop?
I really like that the book suggests you put a town on a river. Almost all towns are on rivers, and it's something a lot of fantasy maps miss.
In reality without water you wont have a settlement. Not only do people need water to drink, wash and cook, industry requires huge amounts of water. Also the same water becomes the primary way of disposing of waste, so you either need a sewer system that existed in ancient times but didn't exist in medieval times, or portable water must come from either upstream or from wells (that are hopefully far enough away from cesspits to avoid seepage contamination.
The realism of where you poop isn't an interest for me in my games, but definitely true about either freshwater source or a well.
My hometown has a river that turned bright orange due to mining slag from the mountains. It's bacteria-ridden as well, but the local ducks don't seem to care. The sediment from the mines has actually settled on the banks and over time hardened into rocks, but your foot will sink right in there if you try to walk on them. I learned that the hard way and I never fully managed to wash off the orange grit that dyed my leather workboots for the three years I continued to wear them. Think about that next time you put a river near a Dwarven mining camp.
The town where I live is famous for being built on three rivers. It’s really interesting to research how the rivers have affected the architecture, city design, and overall history of the area. For example, there were very many floods (up to 9 feet of water) up until they built a levy, which significantly changed the architecture and landscape of the city. They also had to raise the streets of the main city by an entire story, leaving all the historic downtown buildings with an abandoned basement level. Most are haunted.
So I'm studying architecture and town planning/urban design/history of towns was one of many topics I learned. Here I'll give you a bit of realism when it comes to the history of towns but all below is just suggestions I guess. If you want to know more about this I would guide you towards the history of early Europe. Looking at old cities you'll get to types: one that started as Roman settlements and the barbaric settlement.
Romans tended to create a settlement based on an orthogonal grid. The reason behind it is because those settlements were soldier camps in the beginning. Sorta like Roman camps in Asterix comics. Examples of such cities would be London in Britain, Paris in France and Heidelberg in Germany. With a little bit of practice, you'll be able to find those old structures (tho London might not be so good - fire swallowing city and stuff.)
The second type is seen mostly in Eastern Europe (where Romans didn't come). They created a structure called Gród (in my language, Polish). Those settlements were much less regular. They were usually built near the river and surrounded by walls. Inside in the centre was the market (later on with a town hall) and somewhere near the outer wall was situated fortress with an extra layer of the wall. Somewhere between the two structure would be situated the church - both the ruler and the plebeian has easy access to religion structure. That being said there was also an additional small temple in the castle itself because if they were attacked and people would gather inside the fortress they still wanted to pray to the god for help. Best examples would be Poznan and Cracow in Poland.
Type 2.5 would be an industrial city. During the industrial revolution, cities were rapidly transformed and the outline changed completely. Look at Barcelona for example. You can see an outline of the old part and then the part that was created during industrialization. Next example would be my home city Łódź. This city was completely built during the revolution and in progress, it has almost no greenery and there is no river nearby (I'll talk about greenery and rivers later on). Both examples are very different. During that period the urban planning only started appearing in the heads of humanity and Barcelona was transformed thoughtfully while Łódź was just building anarchy.
There are also a few pointers I can give you.
RIVER - Old towns were always built by the river because it gave them natural defence. Gates outside the city would usually come towards rivers and there would be no gate on the side with no river since that side was easily penetrable. A few days ago I saw some other guy on YT make a city map and while he's technique was nice he made a river flow THROUGH the city and this is a big NO No. You might wonder - but there are cities with a river INSIDE. This came later on when cities became bigger.
GREENERY - old cities never had greenery inside. Nature was danger and the cities were free of greenery. Later on, as great forests started disappearing and cities grew larger in size people started missing the nature that previously was just behind the wall of the city. At some point, the walls were destroyed as they no longer held the defence capacity it once has (technology going forward I guess) and those places were later used as greenery area. It can be seen in both examples of Poznan and Cracow in Poland. My home city Łódź is different. Since the growth of the city was so fast no greenery was there and the only parks we have are small private parks that were the property of factory owners. During communism, there were taken away and now they are city property.
Your map - as beautiful as it is it has some big errors. Firstly it is way too big to be a village. The city of this size would have a wall around it. I know it is weird but it's connected to how we see the size of towns and cities nowadays. Last year I was in charge of making a study on the development of Warsaw the capital of Poland. I found this great book (in both Polish and English) and if you read the chapter about the historical calendar you'll see how slow was the growth of the city (link: www.architektura.um.warszawa.pl/sites/default/files/Warszawa_rozwoj_przestrzenny.pdf) and with a historical conspect of my whole country is even more significant.
If you wanted a village it would be much smaller and it wouldn't really have a town hall but a rich noble/owner of the city would rule the place from his villa.
The mill also doesn't make any sense. For mills to exist you would need a river with a significant downslope and (at least on the map) it doesn't look like it. Such a river wouldn't have enough power to work mill properly.
So that's all my points at the moment. Ask if you have any questions or disagreements.
And I also remembered just now, Rooftops in one area were usually the same in terms of type and covering (look Heidelberg) only later on the diversity started appearing.
This is a gold mine of great info. Thank you!
@@WASD20 You're welcome. I'm always happy to help :D
@@Lu_R absolute gold, my fellow architect. Tho, if you want examples of roman settlements, just look at Italy, goddamit :D Seriously, the river-not-into-the-city thing is absolutely true... look at Florence, or Rome, or Turin, everyone of them have evolved on the two sides but the difference in dimension between one side and the other is enormous... Or think about Budapest: they were two different cities on the two sides of a river!
I'll add another thing: when cities had castles on hills (usually only the cities that were centres of power) the walls of the city almost never surrounded the whole hill but usually only grew on one side of it, the flattest one: they preferred to use the other side as natural defence. Also, if you try and look, castles or fortresses were usually build on the edge of a city: that was firstly because there was no space in the city center (when the city itself was older than the ruler that decided to build a castle) but also to provide the powerful person with a garden, or a private wood, to better have an eye on the city and an eye on the outside (for spotting threats) and to provide easy escape in case of attack. As Lu said, in fact, fortresses were surrounded by many other layers of walls, to house the citizens: even if built in a position where you could think it interrupted the city walls and made them weak, it was actually a stronghold.
look at Edoras, from the Lord of the Rings as portrayed in the movies: it's exactly built in this way!
About big churches and cathedrals, they were built in the middle of the city because they had few opposition from anybody, and really didn't have a true military value, so that any place would be good :D On the contrary, they were the cause of the more recent (in history terms) trend of having government buildings facing (and therefore figuratively "challenging") religious buildings in the central square, when the kingdoms transformed in more democratic forms of governments.
Just wanted to continue the architectural topic, urban design is a fuckign mess... I hope I had everything right, or else Lu would correct me :D
Also, towns can follow one plan and then another if they were widened from century to century. Look at Rome: the historical center of the town is a mess because it was built before the Romans came up with their regular squared plan. But then, they widened the city by using their regular squared plan.
Yay for drawing town maps!
Well-drawn town maps are underrated, especially with how long players can spend in one town.
When you know you're going to get a heart from WASD20 because there's only 12 comments.
Oh fine.
*SHUT UP AND TAKE MY HEART*
Lol
One thing i like to think about when building towns is: how do these people survive? Their gonna need water, food, building materials, ECT. If they are near a river or lake they likely have no need for a well, if they are further from fresh water then they may need a couple wells or aquaducts. If seasonality is a thing, how do they maintain food all winter long. These help me build my city to suit the environment the town is in
Thanks for the shoutout, glad you like the book :-) Your critiques are completely valid. Alot of drama and back and forth with the publisher behind the making of my second book, and it was much tougher to both write and illustrate than the first one!
Sorry to hear that! Well, I’m very grateful for the books, and your inspiring maps. Hopefully someday our paths will cross so I can thank you in person.
I bought your book after watching this video!
@@WASD20 Ever go to GenCon? I have a table in Artists Alley every year (goin on 10 years now!), come on by and we can chat. I'm usually the only cartographer in the show so I'm pretty easy to find!
@@stormcrow13579 I went this year. Bummed that I missed you! I'll have to stop by next year.
Being raised at a farm I want to give some inspiration on field reality. Fields brought more valuable fruits than grasland, so they would mostly only not field land, when it was to wet, or steep. They would often plant mostly apple or sometimes cherrys alongside with pears on steep upper ground, where frost would not reach the trees as easily (they would not only war the fruits but also squish them and make some cheap alcoholic brew for the winter) . Weat is often planted in dryer ground. If you want to give a "realistic" medievial settting, consider that corn and potatoes were not brought to europe yet. Mills would often bei located outside of town, in order of decreasing fire risc. Forrest was also really import for keeping warm in winter, which is why they would chop down trees in the often community forest and pulling them home with horses (my grandma still used to so that in her younger years) Please forgive me die bad grammar or spelling, as I'm only a pescy german student :D
Thanks for this info! Super helpful.
Me living in a medieval town in Italy I often go to the public library where I can find old maps to get inspiration.
It's really great because then I can go outside and see the map from the "real world" perspective
Very interesting. One thing I've heard before that you can try if this approach doesn't work: draw your underlaying terrain first. You don't need all the individual details by any means, but know where you have cliffs, major hills, waterways, and floodplains. Drawing the city first and terrain to suit can make for very pretty, idealized cities. Which is great for high fantasy - Severen, from the Kingkiller Chronicles, has great theming with the upper class district being on a mountain that towers over the rest of the city. Minas Tirith, similarly, is situated on a mountain that's perfectly suited to having the tiered defenses that make the battle for the city so dramatic in the books.
But if you want a city to feel a bit more real, and if you're having trouble with this method, draw the terrain first. Give yourself problems for the city planners to solve, then consider that in the founding stages of city building, they're not going to have the resources to do anything too fancy. A city forming at a river crossing might start with an inn and a few services set up for people crossing a ford, for example, or a mountain city in a pass (these would often have a more militaristic start - you can float an army across a river anywhere, but the only place you can reasonably expect to get a whole army over a mountain range is a pass, so a defensive country would probably want to fortify the passes that enter their territory.)
With that early start, you're going to set down the early roads that go through the city, and they're going to be the easy roads. No crossing the river wherever you want, no building a ramp up a cliff face - those things, if they happen, are going to come later, when city planners try to impose a reformed road system onto things. Most medieval cities will never reach this stage - it's more an industrial/modern age idea.
From there, consider why what goes where? A temple to the Drowned God in A Song of Ice and Fire will need to be near the coast, whereas a city that follows the Old Gods from the same series would have the upper class district near the Godswood. A temple to a sun god might be on the highest peak, such that it catches the first sun rays of dawn and the last rays of dusk. Floodplains, wherever they are, will be agricultural unless you have modern-style food transportation networks, in which case it might be used for lower class housing. Either way, there will be a buffer between that area and any higher class stuff. Unless you've got a society in which flooding is desirable in some way (beyond its agricultural benefits).
If you've got the terrain set already, it can inform how your city would develop, giving you an organic, living city. This approach is a lot more work, especially if you feel the need to sketch the fledgling form of the city so you can visualize how it would develop, but it'll likely help if you're having trouble with the city-first method.
The town map in the first edition ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS module T1: THE VILLAGE OF HOMMLET is one of the best town map references a RPG mapper can have. It got me started long ago, and I still think it's a mighty fine example of decent RPG mapping.
I’ve heard Colville talk fondly of this one. :)
A couple of thoughts.
1. There would be individual trees, but not thick forest so close to the town. The trees that close to the town would have all been cut down to make the buildings of the town, after all, who wants to haul lumber from far away when you are mostly using the power in your arms and legs to move them (keeping in mind that in a village this small, there might not be any one who owns even one horse, let alone a team of them).
2. There should be more farms surrounding the village, and the crops should be fenced in, not the animals. Fencing in animals is a fairly modern invention. In this era, almost all animals would be free range. The barns were usually attached to the farm house as well, the body heat from the animals helping to keep the farmer and his family warm in the cold winters.
3. As some one else mentioned, the mill should be farther from the town. And possibly on the other side of the river bank. Mills were very dangerous. If some one accidental brought a candle inside a mill it would blow up like some one had dropped a 2000 lb's WWII bomb on it.
I really enjoy the Town maps more than a Continent. You just feel the life and the story more seeing it closely.
This is one of the most constructive comment sections I’ve ever seen I love it here
I'm DMing for the first time in a few days and wow I'm so glad I found this channel. I'll definitely be watching these videos while I plot out my campaign lol
I like the idea of using medieval city builders as beta test for my towns depending on the stage of developement the town is in. What kind of resources should be near by, what kind of home industries should be involved, what type of warehousing structures should be up. Its also a solod means to figuring out the economy of the town. What's produced, wha'ts traded for, what's cheap, what's expensive, what is essential, etc.
Regarding future videos on this subject - how about those parts which that guidebook DIDN'T cover sufficiently? I'm particularly interested in the "what roads make sense and where" and "what you're going to find near this or that place" part; even without a map drawing to go with it, simply doing a talk on these would be great.
Also, I have to give big props to you for actually noting pros and cons of stuff sent to you as "sponsorship" and for promotion. This way it doesn't feel like a blind shill puff piece - instead, it feels like I'm getting an honest opinion review that makes me consider the strengths and weaknesses and actually think about the product in question. Well done - and I hope the promoters and sponsors aren't going to knock you for it, because to me it's leagues ahead of blind praise and nothing else that some channels give.
P.S. It's also kinda pleasant to see something so nice as this map be made in a visual / quality style that I can follow myself, with my own limited art skills.
Town and village maps are fun. Drawing city maps are a pain in the butt.
I usually start by stocking the town. listing important places, buildings and businesses, maybe a primary trade goods. Then I design the town with a bit of thought of placement of those important places. I also like to draw my buildings on 3/4 view instead of top down. It just makes it more visually interesting.
I enjoy map making so much, I still design them, even though I haven't DM'd in years.
I wish the TH-cam Algorithm recommended this to me 8 months ago. But I’m glad it recommended it to me anyway!
Well done. I love how you walk us through the process. I can't wait for the next video.
I love these little Townmaps, i'm doing it on paper which i soaked in Tea or Coffeé and then hand it to my Players when they visit a Kartographer or a Merchant who might sells it.
My players love these Maps an even ask if they could have them to frame them and hang them on the Wall.
Its a nice feeling that these Maps are getting such great feedback :)
I often get asked where i learned these methods of drawing and i imidiatly redirect them to ur Channel. Keep up with the great work ur doing. much love.
Hey! First i'd like to mention that i think your videos on map making are incredibly helpful! I've only just started getting into this over the last week and i've watched so many of your videos. Also, I'd like to mention as a bit of feedback on the river specifically, the erosion and sediment deposits should be flipped. The sediment deposit would be on the inner bend of the river, and the erosion would happen on the outer bend. Thank you very much for your content!
One of the best pieces of advice that I got before I began creating town and city maps was to think about what trades or goods or industries is the town known for. This will inform quite a bit of where things should be laid out inside the town or city as most form will follow the function of those industries! Thanks very much for this tutorial!
I love the control you have over your lines! It really demonstrates the care and patience you have for your process
Really cool! Your map turned out great! And it also makes me want to dive into World Anvil again.
This seems so fun and relaxing! I really want to try it someday, and take my adventures to the next level
I love this stuff so much! These videos are very fun, but also super relaxing. Great to watch at the end of the day when I want to destress without zoning out :)
What can i say? You are the source of knowledge from which I draw every day to improve my map drawing skills. I've been following you for some time now and you've never disappointed me! Keep it up.
You freaking legend, this is what i need and was looking for a long long time (talking about not only tge map but also the web site to connect maps)!
I've been working on stuff like this for almost 2 months now. I'm glad I came across this video because it's helped me make some edits to my towns and adjust the layouts
Dude you are the single greatest dnd guide. You have a great tutorial on how to play and do rpg’s. I myself am making a campaign, do you have any tips. Keep up the great work.
Jay! This came at the perfect time! I am designing a small town for starting a new campaign with some family and friends. We’re all new and I’m so exited to start. I stumbled across your channel and I was hooked.
I'm so glad you've finally done this one. I have to draw a city map and I didn't really know where to start.
super helpful video, thanks Nate
This was super cool to watch. Definitely giving me some ideas ! Thanks for sharing!
I just started my journey and your tutorials have really helped my group
Thanks again Nate. A great little map! Also, I think the sequence showing how to use World Anvil "in practice" for tagging was a really great way to merge the sponsorship stuff with your content (though I appreciate that wasn't the only reason you did it).
I'm super late but I've been working on a map for a book I'm writing and your videos have been super helpful! I love the advice you give and you have a great way of teaching, it's super inspiring
I would like to see a videos on placement and layout, both on a world map(like where should towns, cities, even mountains go based on natural features), and then on a regional level, what buildings usually go where, like does an inn usually sit in the middle of the town or what? But I enjoyed watching this, thanks :)
Nice! To see an instructional video on how to go about it. I have two things that I feel could make it even better! First: having commons. The idea of commons (land that is owned by the community) is probably the most common way to have grazing land for your livestock in European history. This means that the farmland which is privately owned is located around the village is fenced off from outside areas (the commons) where the livestock grazes overseen by shepherds. I think it's a shame that this isn't something that most map makers seems to know about. The second thing is that I think the main roads should pass by the square. The place you'd put up stalls and markets is beside and not on the road.
Great points! I appreciate it.
This is going to be very helpful! Thank you so much for making this tutorial.
great job looks awesome
Great video. easy to follow and lots of great comments below to help build a variety of map types and why they are that way. I will have to look at maps of some of the locals mentioned. Or read the books mentioned as well. Thank you. Keep up the great videos.
I love this channel. Thanks, Nate!
Please i want more of how to create a town, city and kingdom maps
Thanks, this is really helpful
This was very helpful, Ive always been meaning to learn how to draws these types of maps!
I need one of those maps, thanks for showing us how to do it!
Yay been waiting for town map tutorials, you helped me draw my world map and now your gona be there for me with my towns and settlements.
Although it seems trivial for those who don’t have access to these sorts of books if you could go more in-depth regarding each step like roads and layouts building placement and shapes (almost like you did with the world map making step by step, mountains, rivers forests ect I know it would take up quite a bit of time but there is Really nothing else out there like that and you’d be another 10 steps above the rest wen it comes to this stuff.)👍
Yesss just when I needed it. Writing my first one shot!
I need to pick up that book. Great video!
Those books are really sweet looking!
Thank you Nate!
The town came out great! I might steal some of your ideas... I need to plan out a few towns for an upcoming campaign for sure, and this has been inspiring
Thank you for this, helps quite a bit.
This Channel has lifted my art block
Dude your maps are awsome
Very good video and tutorials i just recently found them thank you and keep it up!
Maps, maps, maps!!!
(They're amazing!)
Thank you for this informative, eye-candy video.
you make it look so easy. sick man :)
It is just really interesting to me to find stuff on the internet ive been doing for years
Ive been drawing maps for like 7-8 years now not that consistantly but regularly
And up until like 6 months ago ive never seen anyone doing the same As I do on the internet
Back when I was a teen the only thing I had was the map from Tolkien and I started mimicing it than later changing up what I didn't like and so on
And now its so strange to find all the videos with a style very similar to my maps
And its just crazy how much you can achive with trial and error, and love for drawing (thats what I did 😅)
Im just glad I found this channel, a home for my nerdy drawing self
I always thought there were basically no people doing the same as I do
Btw and advise on city maps to not plan roads at all
Just the biggest ones and othervise leave some space between houses and the roads Will form themselves just like in medieval times
And the same goes for small settlements
Two big roads and space the houses out around them
planning to do a homebrew campaign, with a mayjor city that has lower classes upper classes and a sort of middle mixed race trouble class this really helped me get the layout done! thanks a bunch!
Thanks so much I was making a campaign and I was trying to make a map of a town. Obviously it wasn’t great... So thanks for making this video so it will help me to make better ones in the future. 👍🏻
Just what I was looking for
You name things so easily that I almost envy you... (what I really envy you is for your mapping skills! you're awesome)
Ironically I ordered the book the day before I found this video. Thanks for the heads up about the order inside the book, it will make reading it when it gets here easier.
Great video! I would love to see examples of how to go about drawing towns in different environments, like a desert town, or a town in an arctic setting etc.
The first thing I would draw is a pre-existing thing like a river but then again it depends on what one has in mind for a village layout. Overall this one looks great and I'm impressed at the artistic details.
Awesome map!!! Looking at non-fiction medieval maps is a great suggestion that I used back when I first started drawing my maps. My dream is to get out the watercolors and make some light washes on the grass, dirt roads, rivers and cobble stone roads.
Nice effort! Takes me back to the 80's, drawing towns, ruins and dungeons because I couldn't afford modules (a luxury) and they weren't widely available.
Thank you!
Fantastic resource, consice and informative, also well made video, keep up the great work
Thanks!
I love this guy and I don't even play RPGs. Interesting stuff!
A good resource for city planning would be the D&D cityscape supplement from D&D 3.5. It goes into a lot of detail about what buildings would go in what areas and road planning and things of that nature
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll have to check that one out.
Lots of places you can find a free download of that supplement too!
Wow great video again! Never though drawing a village would be that interesting.
To save you time filling in those forest patches you could make them fade into a simple crosshatch shading :) i like the look of your may tho dont be too hard on yourself ^^ and world anvil looks like a nice tool man will need to check that out
I know this video is old, but another factor that is lost is that in smaller villages houses were not always parallel to roads, additionally they'd have small holdings for the family animals, say a goat. As such they'd have small green areas and the house set back 5-10 feet from the road.
Great tips!
I bought this book on black friday, nice timing, nate! haha
You should get yourself some staedtler pencils, they are round-grip and come from many different sizes, like 0.01 and even 1.2. It’s what I use and is perfect for drawing.
Love your work!
Great video
Seems like you are wanting more of a FANTASY MAPS: CIVIL ENGINEERING, which I would totally buy.
Turn down darkness on your screen if you can’t see the lines
turn down the darkness? turn up the brightness?
Tom McSkimming, lol, just realized. Turn down the brightness. Make the screen darker.
I like your drawing style . It makes for an attractive finished product. I would point out though that ina typical DnD world you'd certainly need to consider effective defences. Invasion by the evil hordes of various types has to be probable or at least possible., unless it's somewhere like Tolkien's 'The Shire' before Sauron became intersted in finding out where the one ring was. Defensive walls/ palisades, a guard militia, barrack, a lookout tower for instance. and natural defences such as water, rivers, lakes, sea, the lay of the land, hills, mountains. When I design and draw a town map I like to start from considerations like these, plus any form of industry, how close to other settlements, population. before beginning the drawing. I find that taking these considerations into account shapes the form of a town and makes it easier to decide what it includes and how it's laid out. Good video. Subscribed!
Great tips
I have been loving drawing out my world maps, but city maps are something I've overlooked heavily for my campaign. I hope to get one done soon!
All those trees look like little faces and it looks awesome.
Great idea
I love this one Nate. Came out really good. Inspiring me to pick up those books and try making some of my homebrew world maps but I am not nearly as talented as you. World Anvil looks pretty amazing. Do you need to pay in order to have access to all of those features?
Thanks! I think everything I showed off is free. The paid version does have more pin options for sure, but the free version still has a lot.
Liked it. Would like to see a full city map!
THanks for the suggestions!
Damn it looks like I need to re draw my quest town... Again lol, love the work your tips have help a bunch
Looking to start a campaign based around this sort of more modern age city. Using this video for inspiration! :)
Awesome video! I really love the book shoutout as I have been looking for a resource. For another video, would it be possible to get a castle/keep/stronghold "how to draw" video for players and parties that are interested in acquiring a base of operations or permanent residence and what that might look like!
I draw city maps all the time!
Not fantasy ones though.
I do A LOT of worldbuilding, but my worlds are modern. I'm kinda inspired to make a fantasy world now
I have been waiting _so_ long
Could you try to cover natural development of settlements in depth? Your river and mountain comments about how things generally form really helped my mapmaking.
To anyone who has software on a drawing tablet which they want to use here is a simple guide:
I use jazza’s arty brush pack and it has everything you need to make a settlement I’m even though you don’t need it.
Step 1: Make a rough shape in construction pencil (try use draw a big letter than distort it for the island or isolated feel) then fine-line and add a coastline.
Step 2: Make a new layer and add trees and roads and stuff
Step 3: Make another layer and add houses
Step 4: Get a hex grid and put it on a new layer
(Only for DND use from now)
Step 5: Print and enjoy the amazing homebrew
I really need to give a town map a shot.
instructional books and tutorials are almost always just step by step how to do the specific example and rarely even touch on the logic one should aply to the task. I long for a "How to think when" series with lesons like "How to think when drawing a fantasy roleplaying map", "How to think when writing romance", "How to think when choosing a pet"...
I love this! Roof styles, fields would be cool. Where to place things. Realism of what basics are needed, like freshwater source or well etc. Also maybe difference between European style towns with outlying farms to go to work in vs American homesteading style lived on farms with city centers. Differently sized towns. But love what you've done so far. And I loooove world anvil.
Thanks, Ben! Great suggestions, as usual.