If you start in a vacuum, and pull up one of the Magnum Awesome maps on here... or a scan of some 18th century cartographer's 10-year opus, a natural response is ohmygoodness that is ART, and here I am a mere scribbler. But that's THEIR vision. Especially starting from a story, or the germ of one, whatever mapping you do that expresses your ideas, is leagues better than those masterworks. Better in a subjective yet very real sense - who else is gonna draw up the visual representation of your world? I can wish I could do isometrics like Gluhoded or Crayons, I can even work at developing some skills in that vein, but I don't have to. Take "picture = 1000 words" and reverse it - i already CAN produce a verbal picture, with thousands of words. <shrug>... maybe less efficient, but maybe not. I'll wager a 35-year-old speedball #C3 pen nib that over a dozen Guildsmen have personally labeled me jbgibson, the verbose :-). I'll happily wear that badge.
Heeeehee - maybe one day we'll do a contest where we produce a map using only words :-).
I do compare my work with others', but I don't tend to get angsty about my shortcomings. I err on the side of being all Walter Mitty about it - "I could do that... might spend the thousand hours to get there, some day..." I expect a general progression like Ascension's name: I'll get better'n better, by'n by. Plus, as my father-in-law says "somebody's got to sit on the curb and cheer" ;-).
btw, jtougas - Commander Mayer's views of UNC-134.B no doubt had to be fairly low-res, to fit on the transwave message back to company HQ, so no need to feel it's a poor comparison. It's a perfect 10,000-mile view! So I'm glad you like what you do - the rest of us do, too.
I even enjoy the challenge of somebody getting persnickety and complaining "Oh, come ON now, everybody knows northern-hemisphere whirlpools spin the OTHER way, tsk, tsk." That drives my rationalizer bump into overdrive... so this world spins the other way, hunh! Or it isn't a whirlpool sucking down, it'a a whirlmount piling water UP, so there!
And I make a pretty decent omlette too :-).
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