[Award Winner] Hand-Drawn Mapping (for the Artistically Challenged)

[Adair]

Just wanted to say that this is an excellent tutorial and thanks for creating it.

I used it to create the following map:

[KCRileyGyer]

Well, for better or worse, I finished my first map in GIMP. I seemed to have gotten the border wrong at some point and didn't realise until the end. I'm using the latest version of GIMP so some things didn't quite translate properly but, being new to the program, I hopefully did reasonably well. However, By the time the colouring comes in for the rivers, it tells to grab the River channel but there is no step telling to create the river channel. So, I'd just selected the blank area of the river layer, inverted then continued with the tutorial. The labels suck because I didn't know how to manipulate the text after typing; I hadn't used the text tool before and it isn't a tutorial I've come across during my massive reading sessions on this site lol.

Anyway, feedback welcome.

[XCali]

Well, for better or worse, I finished my first map in GIMP. I seemed to have gotten the border wrong at some point and didn't realise until the end. I'm using the latest version of GIMP so some things didn't quite translate properly but, being new to the program, I hopefully did reasonably well. However, By the time the colouring comes in for the rivers, it tells to grab the River channel but there is no step telling to create the river channel. So, I'd just selected the blank area of the river layer, inverted then continued with the tutorial. The labels suck because I didn't know how to manipulate the text after typing; I hadn't used the text tool before and it isn't a tutorial I've come across during my massive reading sessions on this site lol.

Anyway, feedback welcome.

Hehe! Well done for a first map in Gimp.
As a relatively seasoned GIMP user by now, I can tell you it gets way easier as you go. Learning the ins and outs of the program is daunting at the start. But, don't give up.

As for the text? Man, I can't tell you how long I myself struggled with labelling a map. So, for a first try, not bad.
Tip for that though, choose a creamy color for the text itself and a DARKish color for the background color(Mostly some color that fits the theme of the map). For some reason, white as a background color for the text has that glowy blurry effect, don't ask me why. Also, don't Gaussian blur the heck out of that background text color, it is better to either have a solid color, or a very tiny amount of blur for it.
Hope it helps.
Try it and get back to us.

EDIT:
I just saw the shadows having an odd effect with the mountains, if that hint of shadows you placed is on its own layer(it should be, makes it easier). I would suggest giving it 1point of Gaussian blur. that would remove that hard line.

Also, something you can do to fill in the back stretch that is a bit featureless, is to take a random cloudy brush, (If you are using gimp 2.10, then one of those animated brushes included with the red cross at its bottom)
CREATE a layer above the color layer somewhere, put it on multiply or overlay, and on a LOW opacity, and a dark color close to your theme, paint in random depressions. A few, but for showing the idea, Whispering Path and Hunters Fall
(Just a note, I had a month or more to do each of these. )

[KCRileyGyer]

Thank you for the feedback, Omri, I'll either give your suggestions a go tomorrow or Saturday. I'm looking forward to trying them out.

Your images are cool.

[KCRileyGyer]

Oh, I forgot to add that the tutorial also doesn't mention needing a Rivers channel despite instructing to load it during the colouring section. <Ignore this, I found the instructions that I'd missed the first time. It wasn't where I thought it would be and was tired when I'd originally read that section. That'll teach me to read properly.

[KCRileyGyer]

Because my first attempt had issues, I'm doing this tutorial again. In the section Roads and Cities> Step 3: Roads for Real... After applying the stroke, the tutorial says:

"For some reason, every time I did this, my stroke came out orange. No idea why."

The reason is because, in the pattern section, an orange pattern is selected. One either needs to find an existing pattern that is sufficiently dark or create one and install it (remembering to restart GIMP for the program to see it - if that works the same way as brushes).

I'll show round two of my attempt either later today or tomorrow.

[KCRileyGyer]

UPDATE FOR GIMP 2.10.6 USERS

Page 28 - Texture
After desaturating the plasma cloud texture, you have to apply a bump map, do as follows:

Go to Filters> Map> Bump Map... Click on the little viewport to the right of the Aux Input.
A little menu of your image layers will appear. Double left-click the Texture layer as a single clicking won't work.
Then follow the rest of the tutorial instructions to apply the bump map.

[KCRileyGyer]

Well, there will be no new version of this from me because by the time I get to brushing in the mountains, hills and forests, whenever I hide a different layer any or all three of those brushed features will disappear. I have restarted this tutorial from scratch three times now and it's the same problem every time. I'm stuck and don't know what to do about it. I'm using gimp and following the tutorial as best as gimp 2.10.6 will allow me. I guess it's time for me to translate it into PSP lol.

[KCRileyGyer]

For better or worse, here is the result of completing this tutorial; with modifications to achieve the (hopefully) same results in the latest version of Gimp due to the brush layers disappearing whenever merging where told. I'm still having issues with the text labels so I'd just omitted them.

[Gidde]

Hi KCRileyGyer! Thanks for doing some heavy lifting on an updated version ... sounds like I have a bit of work to do once I get my GIMP updated (i'm still on a very old version).