Hello
Hello Everyone,
I recently stumbled upon this site while searching online for cartography tools. I'm so pleased that there are this many people interested in cartography - and in particular fantasy cartography. My own particular interest in joining the guild is to develop my own map making techniques and hopefully to turn my relatively crude, hand drawn, maps into polished, more professional looking, digital maps. I've had a brief look around and I must admit to being very impressed, and a little daunted, by the skill of some of the members. There are so many great maps and mappers here. It's fantastic.
Currently, I have no tools for map making other than pen and paper. So, bearing in mind I have a limited budget, what should I invest in?
Hi Edgewalker, and welcome to the Guild!
If you are comfortable with pen and paper, and are interested in digital enhancements, I would suggest first investing in a scanner, and just downloading GIMP as an editing package. You will be able to scan in your art then colourize/combine/edit digitally... I believe another newcomer, Absinth, posted examples like that here.
Another is example is a map I made a while back, here.
-Rob A>
My tutorials: Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional Map ~ All My Tutorials
My GIMP Scripts: Rotating Brush ~ Gradient from Image ~ Mosaic Tile Helper ~ Random Density Map ~ Subterranean Map Prettier ~ Tapered Stroke Path ~ Random Rotate Floating Layer ~ Batch Image to Pattern ~ Better Seamless Tiles ~ Tile Shuffle ~ Scale Pattern ~ Grid of Guides ~ Fractalize path ~ Label Points
My Maps: Finished Maps ~ Challenge Entries ~ My Portfolio: www.cartocopia.com
Hi! - welcome!
well, the best investments with a limited budget would be the free software and there are many tutorials to help you through. GIMP springs to mind, but there are others, some made by other memebers here - like Wilbur, which I find particualrly useful. Then theres also a free The Roleplying City Map Generator
check over at the How to section for more details and there's also a software disccusion thread and list of software here
you'll find there are plenty of helpful folks here.
cheers
jez
Thanks for the advice. GIMP seems like the place to start. I'll try downloading it and playing around. I was looking for a good procrastination excuse to get me away from marketing study. GIMP sounds just the ticket.
Welcome Aboard!
GIMP is a great place to start, I began with that and moved on to Photoshop after awhile (when I was able to get a copy of it). Plenty of other GIMP users in the guild to help with any questions you may have.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
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Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
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