My two cents' worth... What you have here is a good start, but what's missing is that 'natural' feel. It looks like a map someone made; you want it to look more like a picture of reality. What I might to do improve things: Start by laying down a background layer. Something simple like a grasslands tile might work, to give it a feel of 'being somewhere'. Something like this, perhaps: Grassland This is just the first one I saw in the marketplace; there are lots more where that came from. This will transform your map from looking like 'stuff on a grid' to 'stuff in a field', which is at least somewhat better. You might also use something with some trees and such already in place, like this: Forest Again, just a randomly selected background, only this time with some trees and a path running through them. To make it look 'brambly', insert your bramble bushes wherever it looks right to you, more or less how you've done above. Next, you'd want your patches to look less 'squared off'. Of the two large patches you have, the upper one isn't bad, but the lower one has a distinct right angle in it, something you almost never see in nature. To fix that, I might place a few more copies of that piece, overlapping one another, in various configurations; this would help round out the straight lines, and make it look more natural. Also, more variety; there are lots and lots of trees in the Marketplace, and literally thousands (Millions? More??) can be found by searching other sites. The more variety you have, the less likely you are to notice a repeat, and it's that repetition that makes it look unreal. Changing the alignment helps, but subconsciously it still looks 'off'; variety helps off-set that feeling. Oh, and try varying the size, shape, alignment, and positioning of your items a little more. Make some trees bigger than others, instead of all the same size. Clump a few up here... spread them out a bit more over there... have a few of type a with several type b, then a few of b with a bunch of a... and so on. Finally, blending the pieces together to look more... well, natural. I can see just by glancing that there are some parts that are distinctly different than the others, and therefore probably dangerous to my character. The names don't help much either! (Then again, it's possible only the GM sees those, so I'll let that slide, heh.) I see a few places where you 'hid' them in amongst the other brambles; that's good. Maybe try moving them 'behind' the other items, to make them a little harder to see. Map-making is much more an art than a science... the way to get better at it is to practice! You've got a good start, and I doubt anybody would complain playing on what you've got. But keep working at it, try new things, and don't worry if it's not perfect. The next one will be better, and the one after that better still! Hope that helps! -Phnord
