Intros

[xandder]

Greetings and Salutations forum and everyone! I realize this thread could either go to the map WIP area or stay here in introductions (or both?).

That said, I would call myself a total amateur at this stuff (as everyone is at one point I suppose). Mostly I'd say I'm here and I've joined for the main purpose of creating various world and regional maps in varying styles all based on the fantasy-based universe I'm slowly in the works of making.

I've been browsing and lurking your wonderful forum for a week/few days now and I thought that I would greet you all and hopefully improve my artistic style and skills with the help of this forum and those who dwell therein.

At this particular moment, all I really have to show is a single map, created solely with a mouse and a year of Paint.Net drawing and a week of GIMP 2 and the aid of this forum.

The map I've made shows (I hope I've attached it to this post correctly) the entire surface of the planet, created in a traditional parchment rectangular-shaped map. The lay of the land, oceans, and mountains I've been drawing by hand and 'perfecting' slowly over the last year or so.

Just recently, after having found this forum, I got GIMP 2 and starting improving my map with it. I used some tutorials I've read on this site to help me out a little bit, so this map is roughly how I'd like my world to look.

I realize that there aren't any names on the map at present, I have some but they're a WIP. The mountains are roughly where i want them, if not as good as I'd like them to look.

I used the cloud effect tutorial to make the background parchment paper, then duplicated it and darkened the area where land is. I tried various mountain tutorials, but none feel right for the scale of my map.

Right now I think I'm done with this particular map, although I'd like to alter the polar regions to make them look more realistic and I'd like to curve the sides a bit to make it more 'globe-ish'.

Additionally I'd like to create a 'satellite' style map, with blue oceans, dark mountains with white caps, yellow deserts, green fertile lands, the works. I'd like to also create a larger map with more detailed areas, or else several smaller, more detailed maps of different areas.

Anyways, I realize that that was quite a long 'speech' but I thought I'd give you all a good idea of what I'm working on and trying to do.