Before moving on with more detailed maps, or indeed the first written content, I thought it would be interesting to talk (ramble?) a little bit about my hex mapping techniques.

 

As I’ve posted before, I use Campaign Cartographer 3, from www.profanstay.com almost exclusively for my mapping. I know there are a lot of people out there that think this product has a steep learning curve, and is awkward to use with its CAD-based slightly non-intuitive interface. Well, I agree to a certain point, even though I’ve had a fair bit of CAD experience in my professional career.

 

However, with some perseverance I think the results are worth the effort, especially if you subscribe to the Cartographer’s Annual, a monthly goodie bag that provides new mapping styles, symbols  and other cool stuff, along with comprehensive mapping guides. It was the July 2010 Annual issue that provided a mapping style for overland hex maps and got me going!

 

There are other simpler and still excellent hex mapping programs out there – for example Hexographer. I have this also, and have tried it, with good results. However, having spent quite a lot of time getting proficient (at best…) with CC3, and also because I also want to use a range of mapping styles, I’ve stuck with it!

 

So here is a simple guide (Area Hex Map – Mapping Guide) on how I produce Area Hex Maps like the Havenscoast one. It assumes a reasonable level of CC3 understanding, as its more about how I organise layers/sheets etc to get the effects that I want. Hope someone finds it useful 🙂

 

Any questions, I’m happy to answer comments!