How to Draw Mountains, Forests, Swamps and Cities for a Fantasy World Map!

I love this guy, he's really enthusiastic, yet doesn't shout and has a really nice soothing voice, paired with great videos

J.R.R.Tolkien didn't draw the middle earth map's (or rather, the ones he did draw were rubbish apparently). All the famous/published middle earth maps were actually drawn by his son Christopher Tolkien, after listening to his fathers stories growing up.

The mark of an "artist".... every one of the icons looks identical to the next/last... THIS is so very hard for those of us with limited artistic ability and what truly makes the maps look so damn good!

Icon Map 2:49 Icon guide 6:26 Tolkien-style Map 10:07 Tolkien-style Guide 17:28

That magical moment where the end of map outline just hit perfectly with the origin point... nice

A tip for drawing rivers: rivers can converge (come together) but they won't diverge (split apart). When making rivers, make sure not to diverge your rivers. Most people looking at the map will realize that something about the rivers seems a bit off even if they don't know why it seems off. Also, because water is governed by gravity, they usually start somewhere at high elevation (mountains, hills) and move toward low areas (marshes, lakes, ocean).

Hi, I am a grade 4 teacher is Alberta, Canada. I am using a lot of RPG elements this year to spice up my Language Arts and Social Studies. I am currently gearing up to start a cartography unit dispersed throughout Art and SS. The aim is to start out in fantasy so we can add a level of depth to the RPG adventure stories we are currently working through. The end game though, is to teach them mapping skills and have them create their own maps of the Regions of Alberta. I just stumbled onto this video and wanted to thank you. It is such a great guide and I already feel more confident in teaching this to my students. I can’t wait to spend time working my way through the rest of your material!

Best line: "If you know how to draw the alphabet..." LOL. love it.

Holy cow I wish I had come across this video sooner. One day I'm hoping to write my own novel, but I've always struggled with the world-building part, and I feel like having a map is also very nice for your audience to give them an idea of how your world looks. I've sadly never been too good at drawing, but the icon style at the start is something that even I can do!

As a teen I became enamored in how the maps were drawn for Lord of the Rings and later, the Middle-earth RPG. They were detailed yet easy to read and understand. I've been using those patterns ever since. Awesome stuff, sir.

It's really relaxing to watch someone drawing fantasy maps, thank you.

This video is awesome! I had no idea where to even start with making a fun map like this, and this makes it so approachable. Really well done. I’m delighted I found it.

This is how you do a wonderful tutorial that covers and shows so many things. Just wonderful.

Thanks this will really help for my D&D campaign

This is one of the NICEST videos I've ever seen.

Thanks for the videos. I've just started playing around with maps and have found your videos to be extremely helpful in breaking down and making it very approachable!

Hands down best map video I have seen! So many great examples and it's still a concise video not overly long. Great job!

ooh such a relieve, you are the incarnation of be enthusiastic without a yelling at all

One of the best tutorial about icon styles i ever seen. Just huge thank you.

I think this was one of the best drawing tutorials for maps. It has really motivated me to do something for D&D or a fantasy story ❤