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Thread: Hello there.

  1. #1
    Guild Journeyer Syt's Avatar
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    Post Hello there.

    Hi everyone,

    I recently registered here, and made my first post today.

    Who am I?

    I'm a 32 year old guy from Northern Germany, now living in Vienna, Austria, working as an accountant.

    I got interested in maps since, well, I can't remember really. I recall loving two atlases my dad has when I was a kid. One of them had a beautiful design that I haven't seen anywhere since. The land areas were all greyish white, with broad colourful borders for countries and a greyish shaded relied for mountains.

    I also loved the maps in the two volume Reader's Digest's World History that we had. So I drew my own maps/military campaigns soon enough. When I was about 13 I read Lord of the Rings and the Lone Wolf gamebooks. I loved those maps and especially the ones in Lone Wolf with their beautiful borders and colors. That's when I decided to write a fantasy novel at some point and drew more maps. Actually, the fantasy novel is, 20 years later, still a plan. The computer game Starflight caught my interest, too, and at one point I mapped out a whole sector for a story idea, using dice to determine ecosphere/species/culture/tech level/economy etc. for the planets.

    Later, due to real life constraints (job, mostly), I lost track of this. It's only when I moved to Vienna that I returned my interest to planning to write creating worlds.

    I'm mostly using Campaign Cartographer these days. I create maps for myself at this point, and the features the software and its expansions/annuals come with give me enough to do (I mostly use the Mercator styleset, handdrawn or black/white maps; and I greatly look forward to the August annual that covers Napoleonic battle maps) to make lands, cities, dungeons or spaceships. I attach as an example a WIP of a Mercator style map for a steampunkish/Lovecraftian story I'm working on that's partly set on Venus.

    What do I do beside mapping?

    I like movies (mostly classics, but also newer stuff; no romantic comedies/"blockbuster" movies for me - with a few exceptions), history (most my reading these days is non-fiction), music (nearly everything from metal through Sinatra to classical) and a few other things.

    I can't say yet how active I'll be on this board, but I'll most likely stick around if only to read the friendly posts and tutorials here; plus the challenges may push me a bit to try/learn new things.
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  2. #2
    Guild Applicant
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    Post

    Hi Syt, and welcome.

    I'm a new member myself. I like your map, although I have to say I'm one of those old fashioned cartographers. I prefer to use good old fashioned pen and paper, but I wish you all the best in creating your world.

    Actually, am I a part of a dying breed? How many people here draw their maps without the use of a computer?

  3. #3
    Guild Journeyer Alecthar's Avatar
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    Post

    Quote Originally Posted by emotaku View Post
    Hi Syt, and welcome.

    I'm a new member myself. I like your map, although I have to say I'm one of those old fashioned cartographers. I prefer to use good old fashioned pen and paper, but I wish you all the best in creating your world.

    Actually, am I a part of a dying breed? How many people here draw their maps without the use of a computer?
    Welcome to the guild, Syt, good to have you with us. I'm not particularly familiar with CC3, but I do like the look you've put together in that map. It might be worth your while to browse Ascensions tutorial on making Antique maps in Photoshop. I assume the technical aspects will be relatively useless, but the tutorial map has a very similar look, so you may find something that you'd like to try to emulate for your map.

    emotaku, I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised if you take a look at some of the work being done on these boards. Many of our most impressive map-makers incorporate many hand-drawn elements into their maps. I'll grant you that some forgo the traditional pen and paper approach, preferring instead to use tools like tablets, but I don't think the breed is dying.
    "Unless I'm allowed to carry around a gun to shoot their giant killer-spiders, Australia needs to stay the hell away from me. Also Australians, who if they have lived this long are obviously agents of the spiders and not to be trusted."

  4. #4
    Community Leader NeonKnight's Avatar
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    Welcome to the Guild!
    Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User

    Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!

    Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
    MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave

  5. #5
    Administrator Redrobes's Avatar
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    Welcome and yeah there are quite a few pen guys here tho I am not one. Torstan in a big tablet mapper and Delgondantelieus (or some similar spelling) had a big tut about using various pens and inks etc. Real good read - find it in the tuts section.

  6. #6
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    Welcome Aboard!
    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.



  7. #7
    Guild Journeyer Syt's Avatar
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    Thanks, everyone.

    I used to draw maps by hand, but quite honestly - my artistic talent beyond coasts, mountains and small towns is rather limited .... and it's so much easier to make corrections on the screen. I also love to use the computer software for quickly visualizing a place that's in my head. More than once I realized, when mapping out a ship's deck or a building that I used in a short story or some such, that I had forgotten a few details or totall misjudged the diomensions a lot.

    That being said, I do prefer hand drawn maps, aesthetically. I have a few books with wonderfully crafted maps of the past century, and while computer products can come close they'll never quite be the same.

    Alecthar, I did some checking yesterday and it was interesting - I use an old copy of Paint Shop Pro 7 for "post production" and a number of functions work similarly.
    Last edited by Syt; 06-21-2009 at 12:59 AM.

  8. #8
    Guild Journeyer Zar Peter's Avatar
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    Woohoo! A mapper from Vienna... well, "zuagrast" but anyway

    Welcome and have fun!

    (zuagrast: Moved from somewhere else to the town)
    Avatar by courtesy of Castaras from the GiantitP-Forums

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  10. #10
    Guild Journeyer Syt's Avatar
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    Thank you! I'm told, though, that I manage to fake a convincing Austrian accent. "You're from Germany? One doesn't hear at all!"

    I leave it to you whether or not that's a compliment.

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