Hi there,

I've seen the Cartographer's Guild sites a few times when I've been looking for mapping resources and have decided to join the community.

I've been doing pencil & paper maps for years (probably closely tied to my on-and-off fantasy novel addiction) and want to move to digital methods. I have done some limited digital mapping before, including the bones of a large world-map project but I've never been happy with the results.

I'm aiming at a classic fantasy (Tolkien-esque) map style so if anyone has good tutorials or resources I'd love all links!


I'm going through the free software options and I am messing around with GIMP, Krita and Inkscape currently to figure out what I like and what I want to finish the project in. GIMP is PS-like enough be familiar once you set it up, Krita has a neat right-click palette menu (but sacrifices other right click options for it) and I've only opened Inkscape once so I have some investigating to do there. I have a Huion pen tablet and want to get comfortable with it and with one good piece of software before I really get into it.

If anyone feels strongly about one or more of those, or has other suggestions, I'm all ears. I don't want to pay for PS-- I don't have enough time for this as it is and I'm by no means a power user. CC3 looks interesting but maybe a little dated?


I'll be checking out what's going on in the Guild!

Cheers