Hello everybody!

I've been lurking here for the last few days and I've been struck by the professional quality of the fantasy maps here. Fantasy maps are a dime a dozen, but they aren't usually so amazing and detailed.

I'm a long time fantasy reader and have played some Dungeons & Dragons, but my real interest is constructing worlds, which may or may not be used for role playing or fiction. The world building is primary to me.

As you gathered from the title, I'm a cartography student, and am just over half way through my first year of a two year program, after which I will make maps for living. Maps of real places, but I am starting to apply my new skills to making maps of imaginary places.

My skills are fairly new, and before September I hadn't had any experience with graphics software or mapping software, but now I have some familiarity with a variety of programs and loads of other graphics and mapping software on my machine that have not yet learned how to use, but will over the next year and a bit. Some software I'm familiar with is:
  • ArcGIS
  • Corel Draw Suite
  • AutoCAD
  • PCI Geomatica
  • Adobe Illustrator with MaPublisher plugin


Anyway, I'm still fairly new to all of this, so I'd like to make use of the community's experience in map making, and in time I'd like to give back to the community with what I know (and will know) as a cartography student. And most importantly, I'd like to look at maps and have others look at my maps!

And example of some of my school work can be found here.