How to Draw a Fantasy Map

fantasy map making is a fun and easy hobby that anyone can do.

piece of paper, cup of beans, pencil, pen (optional), and a eraser

Start by placing the beans onto the piece of paper and spread them around. After you spread the beans around trace the beans with your pencil lightly. the beans are now no longer needed.

TIP: have a very sharp pencil for fine details

We are now going to draw the mountains and rivers. draw a zig zag line where you want your mountains to be then pick out points in the zig zag to draw sloping lines to the left and right. Then draw some simple curving line where your rivers are. if you want to have lakes just draw some wacky loops

Create a wacky loop on your land mass and then on the side facing you draw a lot of short lines coming straight down after that draw some small squiggly lines from left to right.

First you will want to decide a symbol for your different kinds of towns (village, stronghold, castle, etc),

after you have decided you symbols draw them onto the map where you see fit.

This is probably the easiest step all you've to do is have an arrow pointing north and have N above it or you can do a more detailed compass with all four directions. Look up map compasses to get some ideas. (the images are of simple compasses)

There are some create fantasy name generators that you can use to name your landscapes and landmasses or you can come up with your own ( I like to do a mix of both).

This is a simple but time consuming step. All you have to do is trace over all your pencil lines with the pen.

Some extra details you can add are short lines for grassy areas or some wavy lines around the coastlines or even shading different areas with the pencil.

An amazing YouTube channel for more detailed instructions, amazing maps, and dnd content is WASD20