¡Hola a todos - Hello everyone!

[jmmbarberi]

¡Hola a todos - Hello everyone!

My name is Jorge Miguel (or George Michael if you wish) and I'm 24 and a senior student at Villa María University (Argentina).

I've been mesmerized by JRR Tolkien's works on languages (be them constructed or not) and that awoke my passion for languages and language learning.

Since then (around 2006) I've been improving my English skills while learning some other langs as well -Italian, French, German, Esperanto, Japanese, Ancient Greek, Latin- but the only one that has captivated my heart (and my ears) so far is Finnish. So my current goal is to master -or be a bit fluent- in this language.

By the way, did I mention I'm studying Linguistics at the Uni? Well, I am, and since I've been reading a lot about constructed languages I'm currently planning my graduation thesis on artificial (or constructed) languages.

And... what do I do in my spare time besides learning Finnish and Japanese? Well, I write... poems, songs, but mostly tales. I'm very fond on fantasy tales (from Tolkien's to George Martin's and the like) and fantasy games (like The Elder Scrolls series). I have a huge writing project, that is a fantasy series of books located on a world of my own design. That is why I've been sketching and drawing maps to know where everything is and what I'm writing about.

So this is why I'm here at the Guild, to learn some basics to put things down on computer. I know it won't be the best work of all -that's not my goal- but it'll help some time while I write and figure out the things that are still blurred. When I finish, well... I probably leave it to someone more skilled, maybe someone from the Guild (?)

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Jorge! Your grasp of English is pretty good. You have definitely come to the right place to learn skills as a novice map-maker. We have a whole tutorials section brimming with insights that you may wish to take advantage of. Let us know if you have any questions.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[jmmbarberi]

Thank you, Arsheesh!

I've been diggin' 'round the forum and found some interesting topic 'bout making not-so-random coastlines.

I'm so excited...! I've been making some maps with vectors on Fireworks but it was very difficult and time consuming 'coz I just figured things out myself.

Now with this tutorial and some creativity I got my landmasses running, and only in little more than one hour...

I'll start a WIP topic about this right away!