Newbie's first tries

[szym]

First of all, I’d like to say hello to everyone here as it is my first message on this forum. Recently I’ve decided to try some mapping and this site was a huge help. I know that maps I’m showing aren’t anything special (especially first two) but I had fun making each of them and I’ve decided to upload them anyway just to show some progress I think I’m making.

1) Not much to see here, my first try at digital mapping. Couldn’t even draw a straight line…


2) Second try, I learned how to draw straight lines and trees during making this one


3) I really like this one, all of the cottages had different base colours but I am lazy and used the same shades on each one so they look very similar now.


First three maps were made using GIMP software, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with results, drawing houses was time-consuming and I didn’t like the overall effect. I skimmed through this forum and noticed that lot of people seem to use Inkscape so I’ve decided to give it a try. I’m pretty happy about results, doodling is quite a fun and I like it so far but the interface is confusing and I can’t wrap my head around how it works. Instead of creating whole map in Inkscape I’ve decided to try doing some simple lineart in Inkscape and then work on it in GIMP to add colours and shades. I did as I thought and here are results:

1) Before using GIMP, only Inkscape used so far:


2) After adding base colours and roof shades in GIMP:


This was supposed to be simple map, made without any previous sketch and not realistic, made just to try out how using Inkscape and GIMP to create single map would work out.

I’ve just noticed that I messed up shading on domes in last map…

Any comments and criticism are warmly welcome (well, mostly criticism – I think that I can learn from it more).

Ah, I’d almost forgotten, as you probably noticed English isn’t my native language and I’m sorry for any possible mistakes.