Hi guys, and gals, my name is Kevin. I'm 27 and live in Colorado with my wife, 3 cats, and 2 dogs. I am completely new to cartography (as a skill) and am interested in it because i have tried hand drawing maps before and am never real pleased with how they turn out (been years since i drew one too). My interest in cartography now is that I am beginning a book based on the dungeons and dragons adventure my group is creating and am interested in creating a map for our new world. I ran across someone talking about campaign cartographer 3 and read a bit more into the discussion of one of his maps and found him mentioning the cartographers guild as well as GIMP and AutoRealm. I started doing research on all three and found CC3 to pricey for me (for now at least) and besides I like the level of control you have with programs such as GIMP/Photoshop and Inkscape. I have downloaded both Gimp and Inkscape because I like what i see with regards to being able to use both to create some really NICE maps and the price is right. (I prefer opensource software as is anyways just because i find its quality can sometimes be much higher because there is not really a big concern with advertising and pushing release dates and what not so more effort is put into making them the best possible by the developers.) Getting kinda long winded here so I'll try to bring this to a close. In essence I am a beginner and look forward to learning todevelop a new skill. any hints/tips/suggestions will be much appreciated and I look forward to working/talking/creating with you all.