First ever map! (it's not the worst ever, just close : ) )

[eastwood6510]

Hey guys, I just completed my first ever map! I used Gimp and followed a short tutorial online. Unfortunately I don't have a drawing tablet, so I had to do everything by mouse and the path tool (owwww my wrist). I would've added more details, but I simply didn't want the accompanying pain haha.

This took me about 3 hours and all was going well (at least from my POV) up to here:



After that the tutorial went on into layers with overlay and color choices and between my lack of knowledge, something called a 'grunge' tool, and over-abundance of confusion, my map went through the following changes.







And finally:




For a first try (with just a mouse (which I now hate very much)), I don't think it's so bad! I obviously messed up the coloring pretty bad, and there's almost no additional details, but all in all. I wouldn't be too embarrassed showing this to you guys as my first ever map.

What do you guys think?

P.S. Please tell me there are decent drawing tablets for under $50. *wishes upon a star*

[Redrobes]

A Wacom Bamboo tablet is about $50. I have one and its very good and I got mine from the recommendations from the other members here.

Your map was looking good up to the first image. The colours are a bit gaudy after that. Not sure which tut your following but the key is that you can tell yourself when its starting to go a little awry which means if you were not following a tut to the letter then it probably would have come out better. Its like everything tho - you have to try and try again and know before hand that the first stab at anything is going to throw up some mistakes which you learn from. Just dont try doing brain surgery on a live patient or flying a passenger aircraft full of people on your first time. Otherwise thats life. It did look to be going well at the start tho so take solace from that and have another go !

[RaNaketh]

Hey Eastwood6510, as a new member and also a mouse only (at this stage) user of GIMP I feel your pain!

Of all the tutorials I looked through, the easiest and most useful for me was by RobA "Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map". I still had to follow it through a few times, still I started to get the hang of GIMP and the process he was outlining. But it was worth it in the end.

I didn't even bother trying to make a map I particularly wanted to keep, since it was only the learning I was interested in. Then when I felt comfortable with GIMP and some ideas proceeded to start work on a few projects.

Try it out and always have fun!
Ra.

[eastwood6510]

Hey Eastwood6510, as a new member and also a mouse only (at this stage) user of GIMP I feel your pain!

Of all the tutorials I looked through, the easiest and most useful for me was by RobA "Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map". I still had to follow it through a few times, still I started to get the hang of GIMP and the process he was outlining. But it was worth it in the end.

Try it out and always have fun!
Ra.

I'll check out that tut, the more the merrier at this point!

Having fun is the plan man, thanks for the comment and the link!

A Wacom Bamboo tablet is about $50. I have one and its very good and I got mine from the recommendations from the other members here.

It did look to be going well at the start tho so take solace from that and have another go !

re:tablet; I'll check that out! Maybe I'll be able to get one soonish.

Thanks! I will give it another go! And yeah, I knew it started going bad with the coloring, I just really wasn't grasping what exactly the overlays were doing and why certain colors had certain effects on them, that's something I'll have to research more for sure!