I admit it: I'm addicted to maps. They let me explore new places without the stress of learning another language, changing money, or finding a restroom.
My favorite style of map is the old one used in Traveller, which was derived from Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion map; we now call it an icosahedron.
As Fuller described it, the Dymaxion map is free from the majority of the horrid distortions created by the Mercator projection (familiar to school children everywhere). An icosahedron map shows distances accurately along the edge of any triangle with the distortion increasing only slightly toward the center of a triangle.
And with the addition of small tabs in strategic places, the map may be cut out and glued into a reasonable 3D object. Imagine a d20 with a map painted on it...
I use these tools:
- The Donjon Fractal World Generator, a square projection with height set to 400.
- Adobe Photoshop (almost any version).
- Flaming Pear's Flexify 2.
Here's an example from Donjon:
This was a square projection. Once I got an image I liked, I saved the image to my computer.
Load into Photoshop and run Flexify:
I turn off tabs and grids, but enable edges.
Play around with latitude, longitude, and spin until the lands are where you'd like them.
I often add an overlay of hexagons to get a leg up on mapping for gaming use.
I absolutely LOVE Hexographer, by the way. It's a Java application for making hexagon-based maps. It can run for free in your browser, or purchased to run standalone with extra features.
Sometimes, though, I'm in the mood for a more artistic map.
Here's one done in Photoshop, based upon a triangle in a different map:
