Newbie

[Twonineone]

Hey everybody!
First of all please excuse me for my english, it's not my first language, so apologies for my mistakes.
I'm Tom, 28 years old and big fan of drawing maps. The problem is that I've never tried to draw a map on a computer, this is why I'm here

I found this forum thanks to a friend, and I've already tried to follow some of your guides (Pyrandon PDF and youtube guides), but I'm a newbie with drawing programs so I can't realize my dream (a big one indeed) and see one of my maps at the same level of those which you can find on the web.

That's all, see you on this forum

[RobA]

Hi Tom-

Your post was caught in moderation, so I approved it.

Welcome to the Guild, the mappiest place on Earth!

-Rob A>

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Twonineone!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[WillyWombat]

I hand draw my maps before I do anything in the computer. I'd love to get to that point, but dealing with paper/pencil still gives GREAT results. Hopefully we can springboard into computer stuff together?

[Twonineone]

Thanks everybody for your welcome

@ Wombat: Till a week ago I used to draw my maps just with pencil and pen, but I think that if I have a global idea of what I want to do, using straight graphic programs is the best way to save my time. I am a hairpslitter man so I usually need to draw, delete, draw again and delete again and this can take a lot of time if I have to complete my map on paper than try to find commands on my graphic program to colour it on my PC
In any case it will be a pleasure to start this journey together, even if I've never use Adobe or something like that, so it coul be a problem

[jbgibson]

Welcome to the Guild, Tom!

Do you know what software you want to use, or (related question) what style and type of maps you want to make?

[Twonineone]

Thanks JB

I'm using Adobe Phoshop CS6, and I'm trying to follow a youtube guide for medieval/fantasy maps. The problem is that this guide is a bit old (these videos are posted in 2007 ), so the challenge is not just trying to get a nice map, but try to find correct commands too

[jbgibson]

The version mismatch may be confusing, and may slow you down, but I bet it will force you to learn PhotoShop better than if you were able to follow each step exactly :-). If you are new to any PhotoShop at all, maybe you could first work through a map tutorial specific to CS6 - even if it is not a style of map you want to create, it could teach you the application better. Then you might be able to translate old <=> new better.

If you revise a lot, just the "undo" of any graphics software is probably already making you happy, right? Do you have a table so at least the familiar feel of drawing is present?

[Twonineone]

Yes indeed. Infact I've already known a lot of shortcuts and commands which probably I would never learned with a recent guide
I didn't Know that I can find map drawing tutorial in CS6. I was so happy to know that I could draw maps by myself that I started following the first tutorial I found under my eyes. Probably a more recent one would be better for me, but with a more recent guide I would probably not find you guys
In any case, yes: the "undo" command is my best and more used command, in particularly because I have no graphic tablets, I have to draw everything with my mouse so the result is not always good enough.
I'm thinking to buy a graphic tablet for Christmas, but I've really no idea which models are better or worst so I think that I will buy a low-quality one, just to try drawing with a pen and just to see what's the difference between a pen and a mouse.