THE LEARNING ARCHIVES

Whether you're creating maps for a novel, rpg, or just for fun, this collection of tutorials and map tips will help you create more professional and believable maps for your story!

How to Draw Swamps
Tutorial Josh Stolarz Tutorial Josh Stolarz

How to Draw Swamps

Swamps are a haunting feature of any fantasy map, their still waters and tangled growth hiding stories of mystery. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to bring these wetlands to life, starting with basic shapes and building up details with simple steps anyone can follow. By the end, you’ll have the skills to create a swamp on your map that your readers or players can explore.

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Where to Draw Marshes on Fantasy Maps?
Map Tip Josh Stolarz Map Tip Josh Stolarz

Where to Draw Marshes on Fantasy Maps?

There are so many ways you can utilize marshes in your worldbuilding and storytelling. They can be a place of great abundance and biodiversity, or they can be somewhere filled with foreboding and danger. Either way, it’s important to understand how they actually form in order to place them on your map.

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How to Draw Marshes & Wetlands
Tutorial Josh Stolarz Tutorial Josh Stolarz

How to Draw Marshes & Wetlands

One of the most iconic locations in The Lord of the Rings has to be The Dead Marshes. Marshes have such an iconic look with their pools and streams weaving between tall grasses over a vast landscape. They can be a place of life and biodiversity or a place of threat and danger like they were in Middle Earth. In this tutorial, I will break down the process I use so you can add some marshy wetlands to your fantasy maps.

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