Miscellaneous Quick Tutorials

[arsheesh]

Over the coming months I plan on adding some quick walk-throughs of various cartographic techniques. Some of these will be quite simple and require little to no prior experience with digital software. Others will require a bit more of a working knowledge of programs like GIMP and Inkscape. Hope these tutorials are of use to some folks.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

HERALDIC SHIELD MINI-TUTORIAL

Someone recently asked about how I created the heraldic shield in my Ruins of Dragonport map. Here is a basic walk-through of my work flow. I am assuming the reader already has a grasp of the basics of GIMP and Inkscape.

[Coriolis]

Thanks!

Quick question: I'm having trouble spotting the refinements you made in Step 9, maybe because I'm using a laptop with an 11-inch screen. Where did you add in the contouring?

[arsheesh]

My pleasure Coriolis. Looking at it now I see that indeed this is not very clear. I used a small round brush to go in and add more white paint in certain areas of the rim in order for the light to appear more natural and not so uniform. The idea being to better capture the simulcra of worked metal. Here's a pic where I've indicated the places where I've increased highlights (part of the problem is that you can't really make these out well in certain areas due to the light background):

Painted highlights.jpg

[Azélor]

Very useful tutorial !

[raymondroot]

ooooh soooo looking forward to the continuation of this thread

[arsheesh]

Glad to here it. I was thinking for the next mini-tut doing a quick walk-through of how to use layer styles to create various map symbols (such as city and capital icons). Of course this will be old hat to experienced mappers but I thought it might still be useful to those new to digital cartography. Thoughts?

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Coriolis]

Glad to here it. I was thinking for the next mini-tut doing a quick walk-through of how to use layer styles to create various map symbols (such as city and capital icons). Of course this will be old hat to experienced mappers but I thought it might still be useful to those new to digital cartography. Thoughts?

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

I'd find that very handy. I'm about ready to start doing exactly that for one of my projects, and it would be great to have some pointers from an experienced perspective.

[dworldjumper]

Hi I am new to doing this stuff I use Gimp because it is free. I have noticed some of the Gimp tutorials are for older versions of Gimp. I tryed to do the Ascension's Atlas Style but it got stuck around step 2 or 3 and couldn't get further any suggestions?

[Seraphine_Harmonium]

Glad to here it. I was thinking for the next mini-tut doing a quick walk-through of how to use layer styles to create various map symbols (such as city and capital icons). Of course this will be old hat to experienced mappers but I thought it might still be useful to those new to digital cartography. Thoughts?

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Would this be applicable to GIMP? I would love to see a tutorial on those kind of map symbols!

[arsheesh]

Would this be applicable to GIMP? I would love to see a tutorial on those kind of map symbols!

Yep. I began working on it and then got caught up with other life demands. Hope to have it done by next week. Again, this will be a "quick" tutorial, nothing too in depth or fancy. More on this soon.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh