Help on digital map-making

[Arthur]

Some members of the forum, like Wordman and Megapope, have done excellent works drawing maps for places in Creation. I am a jobless vagabond, so I have a lot of free time, and it just happens that I'll use Denandsor in a game I'm running. That said, I'd like to draw a map of the city. It doesn't have to be too fancy. I was thinking in something along the lines of Wordman's Rathess and Chiaroscuro maps. The problem is: I have little experience in graphic design, and I don't know even where I could start. Could you people recommend me something? A good software (for Mac, please. I already have Photoshop installed, in any case) and maybe some guidelines would help me greatly.


By the way, is there any Denandsor map out there I could use as a base?


Edit: on a side note: exactly where can I find information about Denandsor, besides the Core Book and CoTD:SL?


Edit #2: I've just found something more geographical about Denandsor in Dreams of the First age. Well, besides that, is there anything, even if not official?

 

[Lord Kamina]

You will probably want Illustrator.

 

[Arthur]

It's pretty hard to get until July 1st.

 

[wordman]

There was a time that I thought I knew what I was doing when making maps. Then I started reading the forums at the Cartographers Guild and was cured of that delusion. Spend a while there. You'll get better.

 

[Malekith]

Try dogwaffle, its free.

 

[Zaramis]

I am self-taught and do all my work in Photoshop. Just play a lot with layers and such, and hang out in the cartographer's guild if you want to learn how others do. ( my point with this shameless bump is this: You only need photoshop to succeed )


Bump for my old map that isn't very updated, but is still awesome and was fun to draw:


http://www.zaramis.net/Creation3.jpg

 

[Solfi]

Props for that map Zaramis! Incomplete though it may be, it's quite pretty :-)