Quote Originally Posted by Insufferable Fool View Post
Actually, I'd love to use software. I haven't the slightest idea where to start with that though. And I imagine that an economically challenged student like myself might have trouble acquiring such lofty tools. I'd certainly welcome recommendations; I'm here to learn
A very economical entry point is Gimp, since it is free both as in speech and as in cookies. If you have access to a scanner, you can bring in hand drawn maps then colour them quite easily. This is what I did with the current featured map . If you are comfortable with hand drawing, then alternatively you might want to look at getting a tablet to draw with (again in a program like Gimp, or Painter, or a number of free/inexpensive tools). I just sold my old tablet (Graphire 3) for $50CDN on kijji, so they can be obtained for a reasonable price. I find it much easier to draw with a tablet than a mouse.

If you are more into line-art, then a program like Inkscape (also free) can be used easily with a mouse to create nice maps as well.

Once you get proficient with the idea of creating art in the computer you can consider options that may cost more. Things like Serif Drawplus or Xara Extereme are much less than the big name adobe products.

-Rob A>