Greetings!

[ARockabillyRhino]

Hi everyone,
Good to find a community of map makers. I hope to learn a lot from you all and to give back as well.
I just started map making a few weeks ago (!) but already have a small portfolio in the works. I'm pretty awful at drawing, but there are tools I've been using to help with that. If anyone has any tips in that regard, I'd love to hear how you cope! My preferred style is illustrated maps, but due to aforementioned inability to illustrate, it has been a slow process learning.
Anyways, I've attached a jpg of the first map that I made. I'll post elsewhere as well, for feedback (and to get my post # up), but just wanted to give y'all a feel.
Cheers,
John

[Kellerica]

Ah yes, the classic Starraven set. It seems almost every one of us has made a map with those at some point. Not a bad start in any regard, some river issues but honestly everyone's first maps tend to have those. Take a look at this thread at some point and you'll be all set Other than that, you're off to nice start, keep at it!

As for the drawing part, I personally just kinda leaned into it after a while. The thing about map-making is, you honestly don't necessarily need to be amazing at drawing in order to create some pretty nice looking maps. Even a very crude triangle shape as a mountain looks surprisingly good when there is 30 of them in a row. But if you don't wish to get into the drawing bit, there are a lot of pre-made brush sets of all kinds of different mapping elements besides the Starraven set you've already made use of. If you're Photoshop user, I very highly recommend you give a try to this tutorial at some point. The kind of relief technique introduced in this is extremely versatile and can be a modified to create various kinds of maps when you use it creatively. Photoshop is just really a gift that just keeps on giving, once you get the hang of it only the sky is the limit for creative mapping.

Lol, sorry, I may have gotten sidetracked to singing the praises of PS... Anyways, a most warm welcome to the Guild!

-Kell

[ARockabillyRhino]

Hi Kell, thanks for the welcome, and for the tips, aaand for the quick crit of my first map!
I appreciate you taking the time.
This map was made in GIMP, since the first tutorial i watched showed a lot of GIMP tools in use. It was a few weeks ago, and before that point I thought of GIMP as a way to crop image assets at work. Now I've upgraded to Photoshop, so I'll have to use some of the tips you wrote!
Keep a look out for some more of my maps that I'm gonna post for some critiques.
Aaanyways, thanks for responding,
-John