Coastlines of Iorden: a map commission

This post is Part 2 of a series to augment the Fictional Cartography by D.N.Frost available for free download. Start with Part 1 here.

This and other map commissions are gathered in my Portfolio Directory for you to explore.

Find more guest-inspired content in my Guest Directory.

After getting the go-ahead in Part 1 of this series, I worked with TOAFN creators Zach Glass and Christian Madera to start mapping their Realms of Iorden. They provided me with a thumbnail map of Iorden they'd made some time earlier.

I magnified the 300 pixel image to sculpt their coastline and apply rough topography swatches to their regions. Then I applied some quick color to differentiate all the areas of the map, and I added some basic text.

Check out this Fictional Cartography by D.N.Frost for more maps!

For working off a tiny image, I feel like I did a great job! The trouble with zooming in 1100% is that some blurry areas caused a few initial mistakes.

The two big islands in the eastern sea? Those were actually tiny ship symbols. And that marsh on the northern edge of the desert? That was a swath of mini-cacti.

To help me with the next render, Zach and Christian sent me a larger version of their old map.

With it, I innovated a cactus stamp for the desert in the north, and I tested out cacti swatches until I found one that looked decent.

I also removed the islands in the eastern sea.

The TOAFN creators needed the hilly area in the south to be a marshy waste of broken stones - very specific topography I didn't have on hand.

Fortunately, I had a marsh swatch and a broken wasteland swatch, so I tried overlaying them.

After a few tests, I came up with a broken marsh that captures the eerie spirit of the land.

I also changed some of the colder southern forests from fluffy oak trees to a hardier mix of oaks and pines. They asked for some color adjustments for the northern desert and southern ice, and they asked for the South Sea to be more rugged and broken up.

They also had a few other coastline adjustments, tweaking the areas that would become river deltas and adding a nice harbor where the town of Seahold would be.

Finally, they asked me to soften the mountain transition from the western peaks to the broken stones and hills further east. After I got all the topography edges smoothed out, I added in some smaller mountains to show how the large mountains tumble into broken rock.

That's it for this post! Up Next: The shimmering White Forest of the elves...

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