The Fantasy World of Fontasia!

I was experimenting in Photoshop today, trying out different filters and such. It's a lot of fun for me to see the type of artwork that comes out of combining different effects together.
Anyway, I discovered that by combining a "Clouds" filter, a "Posterize" adjustment, and a "Find Edges" filter, I was able to create my own fictional countries! Without having to draw a thing!

After a few incarnations, undoing and redoing the process a few times, and coloring the shapes all in green, this is what I came up with.

I decided the countries I had created looked pretty flat, so I added a "Bevel/Emboss" layer-effect to make the landmasses "pop out" a bit more.

Next I added a blue ocean layer beneath the green landmass layers, and added a "Bevel/Emboss" effect to that. See how much it looks like a real map already? But wait, there's more!

I decided to try giving each continent their own territories, to mix it up a little. So I used the same "Clouds, Posterize, Find Edges" process I used in the first place for each shape. Now they've got boundaries.

Here, I brightened up the colors a little, overlaid a grid-pattern on the whole thing, and gave my world a clever, exotic sounding name. You'll see why I called it "Fontasia" in the very next still.

Finally, the finished product, with every single area having their own names. "How did I come up with such fantastic fictional names" do you ask? I named the countries and bodies of water based on what font-type they were. In Photoshop CS4, there is a smorgasbord of fonts to choose from, such as Pristina, Nyala, Palatino, Latha, etc.....the only place whose name doesn't match the font it's set in is the Wing Ding Islands. If they were really in Wing-Ding font, you'd just see shapes and symbols.

********************

There you guys have it! The Wonderful Fantasy World of Fontasia, where the names are based on fonts! If you're an artist or a writer who'd like their very own world to rule over, and you own Photoshop or some other graphic software with similar filters and effects, then play around with the steps I've described. It's a fun way to spend a creative couple hours.

P.S. Click the pictures to make them bigger if they're too small for you to see.