Greetings, Carbon Units!

[jkusters]

Howdy!

As requested by the welcoming email, I'm here to introduce myself.

I'm a long-time GM and aspiring novelist (wait, is that redundant?) who has also developed a love for drawing maps. Usually I do them by hand with multi-color pens, but having seen the work of some of the people here, I thought maybe I'd try my hand at some digital creations. I will probably not be using Photoshop as I don't have a grand to drop on software just to do maps, but am looking at several Mac-based packages, most notably Pixelmator, so any advice on how to accomplish cool effects with that software will be appreciated.

I think the biggest issue I've had with mapping is trying to get all of the useful information onto a map in a way that isn't too cluttered. Geography, biomes, political regions, city names, resources, etc., etc. I'm thinking going digital will help with this because I'll be able to make one multi-layered map and print out several versions for my players' (and my) use.

Anyways, looks like I have a lot of reading to do here. Thanks in advance for all of the great advice I'm going to find in the archives!

JOhn.

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild John! Not familiar with Pixelmator, but there are plenty of great tutorials here that may be of use to you. Look forward to seeing your work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh