Thread: Hand Drawn Maps. Not in PS, GIMP, InkScape, etc. But in HAND.

I'm still learning the digital realms and found them rather frustrating at first because I can hand draw what I want but not so much using a mouse. Soon I will get a tablet and draw with that. I hope I like it.

It sounds like you are looking for what symbols are used in the cartographic world for showing mountains, cliffs, waterlines, etc? I'm sure there are some basics you could find out there but me personally, I would rather draw what I think it looks like, kinda like what GP said, "draw what you see". That keeps it artistic to my mind. If you just start drawing X's and boxes to indicate mountains or whatever it kinda blows out a bunch of creativity which is important to me. Now I'm not saying an architect isn't creative, I actually wanted to be one. Of course, if a person doesn't have much artistic ability I can see why they would want to use symbols. I suppose I am more artist than map maker because I'm just not all that interested in using special symbols like stamps to build a map.

As mentioned, this is the Internet and thus far more prone to electronic media. If you are like I was, you might think of digital painting like cheating but that was before I got into it. It's just different and there are a lot of things you can do and experiment with on your work once you know how. It is also art because it falls under the definition of art even if it does have that cheating undo button

Some of my stuff is drawn by hand and then scanned in for more manipulation and coloring. It's just getting easier for me to do it all digitally these days. Still, I do love the dragging of the pencil across the paper.