Reply With QuoteWelcome to the Guild
Allow myself to introduce...myself.
Hello guild. Just recently stumbled upon this treasure chest of goodies and I'm now spending most of my free time perusing all of it's awesomeness. I'm not an aspiring writer nor an RP gamer. I'm just a guy fascinated with history, politics and now cartography. I hope to one day gain enough skill to map out a completely fictional world that currently only exists in my head.
Great to be here and I'm honored to be amongst some amazing talent.
Cheers!
Welcome to the Guild
I am the breath of Dragons...The Song of Mountains...The Stories of Rivers....The Heart of Cities.... I am A Cartographer....
Finished Maps
Kingdom Of Shendenflar Campaign Setting (WIP)
Everything I post is free for use and redistribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 licence, except where noted otherwise in the thread.
There are more ideas and inspirations here than you can shake a stick at...and I imagine that you could shake a stick at a pretty good amount of things
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Welcome Aboard!
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
You sound like most of us! Welcome to the guild and glad we can scratch that mapping itch!
Welcome, Mike. "...hope to one day gain enough skill..." ? Well, try a couple of tutorials that seem related, or just that you like the look of, and work through them. Do you already have some kind of graphics software? Plenty to choose from, to suit any budget or inclination. Then pick something modest that interests you in history or politics, and post a work in progress thread, asking for commentary, tips, criticism, reactions, etc.... you'll get a couple to a dozen of all that amazing talent as veritable tutors.
And "...world that currently only exists in my head." ? Great! Now all that's left is to get it down on paper (phosphors, engraved brass, scribed mylar, canvas - whatever floats your boat). <airily waves hand> mere technicalities :-). Seriously - you have a target, and that's a major step toward success.
Welcome! I've been here now over a year and I still spend most my Internet time on this site. It's just awesome full of good stuff and helpful people who are willing to aid you as your skills grow. I think you are going to love it here.
“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden
* Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt
Thanks guys.
@jbgibson - I'm currently working on the cheap, starting with Paint.net just because I'm familiar with it. But it sounds like Gimp might be a better program for mapping?
My problem with mapping is the same with everything else in my life, always trying to be perfect. I've started quite a few maps now but never got very far. I'm interested in creating an Earth-like world that doesn't look like Earth, but it gets pretty frustrating when I'm off to a good start and then learn something new about climate or geography and have to toss it because it's not realistic/believable. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so interested in all of these topics.
Welcome to the guild MikeB!
I use Paint.Net [PDN] alot myself as well. It is not a powerful graphics program by any means compared to Gimp or PS, but with some tricks and A LOT of patience you can still achieve great things with it. While I have Gimp and even dished out the money for Genetica Basic, I still find myself using PDN much of the time because of the simplicity and intuitiveness of the program (and because I haven't had the time to sit down and really work through all the Gimp tutorials). Then again, I don't commonly do regional or world maps, where a brush program like Gimp or PS would be much more useful.
If you ever have any questions regarding PDN or need suggestions on plugins for it, send me a PM and I will be glad to help if I can.
Enjoy your stay!
Will do, thanks for the offer!Originally Posted by Wannabehero
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