A couple of questions.

[Aren]

1st Question:How much does a scanner cost?
and where might I get one?

2nd Question: Who else here has a deviant art account?
and also does anyone know of any other useful fantasy forums?

3rd:where might I Get Photoshop and other graphic software?
especially that used for anime/manga?
(and please post the price if you know it)

I only ask cause I have no idea where to look for any of this nor what search. also I would like to know any other useful forums as I have only found 3.
Mystic scribe,Deviant Art, and this one the Cartographers Guild.

[Gamerprinter]

1. Anywhere from around $70 to thousands, depending on the size of documents you need scanned, though a $70 scanner is sufficient for letter/legal size and smaller.

2. Probably most members have a Deviant Art account, I don't but most do.

3. Manga Studio 5 is software especially for creating manga art for around $40, though many graphics applications can do that kind of art - still the price is good, most software is a lot more expensive. You could also consider Inkscape for a free vector application and GIMP for a free image editor like Photoshop. I use Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 10 for all my maps, but it is more expensive ($70+) and I don't create manga art, just normal graphics and digital maps (though I'm sure it could handle manga art just fine).

[J.Edward]

GP pretty much answered it all there.
I have 2 epson scanners that are pretty good.
There are some newer scanners, well, they're multifunction office scanners. You know, printer/scanner/fax units. Not the highest quality print and technically not the world's best scan but they are larger format and not insanely expensive. The larger format [11x17 inch scan/13x19 print] is very useful, even if not the highest quality.
My smaller epson does a great job but doing larger scans was pretty crucial for me. The epson wf-7520 is around $300 but can be found for deals sometimes.
I got mine for $225 I think. My smaller epson was $80 I think.

Some people put their DA account link in the sig, as I have.

[Gamerprinter]

I am spoiled, though, since I run my own graphics shop/digital print studio, I have access to a Ricoh color laser copier/scanner for 11 x 17, and a Canon IP750 combination large format inkjet printer and digital rolltop scanner - I can scan full color up to 36 inches by 96 inches. Of course my printer/scanner unit was $9,500, so it might be a bit out of your budget... :p

I do a lot of hand-drawn work, and except for drawn map objects which I might do several on a letter size sheet of paper, when I draw terrain or structures I always draw in scales from 18 x 24 inches up to 36 x 48 inches, then scan that as B/W TIF files at 300 dpi.

[Jaxilon]

Pretty much all there but i use Photoshop and bought it as a subscription from adobe. It costs like 20 bucks a month but you always have the latest version and I figure if I sell anything at all in the year I can afford it.

[Gamerprinter]

I have a subscription to Adobe as well, mostly because many publishers (especially the video game strategy guide pubilshers) require PSD files for their maps. Although I can export layered PSD files from Xara the program I use, sometimes the layering doesn't work exactly right, so once I export to PSD, I open the files in Photoshop CC2014 to insure that they are properly setup for the publishers. I also have access to Adobe's most recent Acrobat Pro, which I need for many of my publications.

[J.Edward]

GP - I always meant to ask, were you doing art/mapping before starting the studio or the other way around?
What lead you to start the printing studio?

[Gamerprinter]

@J.Edward - so you're looking for a long story, eh?

I started the printing studio in 1994, because I was tired of being a graphic designer employee and wanted to work on my own. But I've been playing D&D and other RPGs since the late 1970's, and I've been making maps for them just about since that time - all hand-drawn and used for my own games (mostly long gone.) I can remember doodling maps in class in high school, so I've been doing maps, independantly from being used in games, as I'd yet to be introduced to any RPG at the time. I was an artist first, my studio was me taking my skills into a small business.

Note my print/design studio targets all the normal stuff from printing business cards, flyers, contractor blueprints, vinyl sign cutting, large format color posters and banners. I was always the local color print specialist. I even restore old photos. Doing maps was always for me only, not for clients, not yet - until 2007.

My venture into doing maps and/or map printing for a profession started about 8 years ago, shortly before I first joined the Cartographers' Guild in 2007. It dawned on me that targetting gamers and game publishers to provide a map printing service, using equipment I already had in my existing print studio, as well as my knowledge of the games and the intrinsic link between the two, was an idea that might be commercially viable. So I started Gamer Printshop, as an online portal to my local print studio. Once I joined the Guild, I began participating in monthly challenges (there were no Lite challenges back then) and won a few - I immediately got contacted by several small publishers asking me to replicate my mapping style to their projects, and began getting commissions.

Now a days, I spend much more time creating maps for commissions, than printing them.

That's the short version!

[J.Edward]

Thanks for the reply GP.

[Midgardsormr]

also I would like to know any other useful forums as I have only found 3.
Mystic scribe,Deviant Art, and this one the Cartographers Guild.

You might enjoy ConceptArt.org