Helloooo.

[jbgibson]

Have you decided what style you want to shoot for? The Gimp can be used for quite a variety of desired outcomes. Another free app of similar complexity and capability as The Gimp, only for vector drawing, is Inkscape. Raster and vector tools get you markedly different results, though there's a bit of overlap where you could use either type tool.

I have two artist daughters. One creates as she goes - what goes on the paper prompts further imagination. The other often starts a project already knowing just what she wants... she's described it as a camera & film situation. If you already have precise ideas all the way down to geographic details, the frustration you describe may be just from inexpert or clumsy toolhandling. That, you can remedy with practice. Improving the "film" as it were :-). If you can let your already-imagined scene morph a bit, then you'll maybe have more success with some of the random-generation methods described in CG tutorials. For example, you could generate continent shapes repeatedly, until whatever features you need show up, to some degree at least... a northern peninsula, some kind of bay - whatever your ideas call for. Some but not all of those randomness methods can be bent to your purposes by excising a blob here and reattaching it rotated over there. My mapping tends more toward daughter #1's way - the happy accidents and awkward bits that my imagined societies would have to work around, letting the land create the characters.

[Briena_Skysong]

I wouldn't mind learning either a hand-drawn look, or something akin to what it would look like if you were flying over the land. My man did a little rough map of Calraida, putting it how he sees it. All my attempts have been done like his, by hand, on paper. In all honesty, when it comes to any kind of art, Horses are my best subject. I can do small maps of a layout of my mother's property, and her house layout, but land is hard. ... I'm rambling... Back to the subject.

I'm not sure quite how to make the page on Gimp to enlarge so I can have a larger working point. I've tried the pixel sizing, but the page stays the same.

I've gone through a few tutorials, by RobA, and I found them helpful.

[jfrazierjr]

I wouldn't mind learning either a hand-drawn look, or something akin to what it would look like if you were flying over the land. My man did a little rough map of Calraida, putting it how he sees it. All my attempts have been done like his, by hand, on paper. In all honesty, when it comes to any kind of art, Horses are my best subject. I can do small maps of a layout of my mother's property, and her house layout, but land is hard. ... I'm rambling... Back to the subject.

For Handdrawn map, I would suggest your first try using some of the many brushes available here in the Mapping Elements forum(make sure to read and abide by any license rules if there are any!!). Just make sure that any brushes you make use of have the shading on the same side or the whole thing will look off.

I'm not sure quite how to make the page on Gimp to enlarge so I can have a larger working point. I've tried the pixel sizing, but the page stays the same.

in order to print, you should set the PPI in GIMP to 300+ ( to make for smooth printed results) and change the units in the new image dialog window to inches. Most printers will default to printing at 600 DPI, but if you set the printer to resize to fit paper, it will just work and look right.