Helloooo.

[Briena_Skysong]

Heyo. I'm, new here. I was trying to find a program for map making, and ran across this place. It looked interesting. So, I registered. I've been wanting to make a map of my roleplay character's world, or, at least the continent she lives on. That, or find someone who would make one for free.

As that is unlikely, I've decided to learn Cartography. Any pointers?

[Redrobes]

Welcome. Lots of apps for making maps and many of them are free. Some do more than others so its a case of what style do you want your map and to what level of artistic effort do you want to put in. We do free requests here as well as paid ones. Of course sometimes the free requests can linger a while but you might find that in the extensive finished maps section is a map that you might like to use or re-purpose for your own personal world.

[jbgibson]

Glad you joined us! Find a tutorial that uses a style you like, and tackle it. Give us a look as you go in a work-in-progress thread, and ask questions as you have trouble - help will be freely and gently :-) offered. If you feel timid about showing first efforts, then run through the applicable steps several times, and show us your next one - but don't worry about our response to a new mapper's work. Really, SOMEbody can learn something from watching you try, no matter how it turns out. And you can learn even faster with multiple mentors' input.

Do you already have any graphical tools at hand, or have you been eyeing any with intent to learn one(s) ? The ones in use here range from free to very expensive, with NO guaranteed better results out of the pricey ones! If you lean toward paper , by all means dive in. Quite a few of us work by hand, and many of the digital hand-drawn techniques (pen and graphics tablet) are valid for pencil, ink, or crayon.

Have you seen the thread reviewing lots of different graphics programs?

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

[tilt]

welcome to the guild - we'll have you mapping in no time

[Briena_Skysong]

Wow. Didn't expect so many greetings so fast. Thanks for the welcome, and the tips. My problem is, I can imagine the overhead view of Calraida, my Roleplay's world, easily in my head, and describe it moderately well in writing and narration, but when I go to draw it down on paper... Not so easy. I'm not all that timid about showing my art.

As for programs, I have GiMP on this computer, as well as Windows Paint.

[Hugo Solis]

Welcome! You'll find all you need to become a good cartographer in here, along with the plus of meeting some awesome people

[jbgibson]

Have you decided what style you want to shoot for? The Gimp can be used for quite a variety of desired outcomes. Another free app of similar complexity and capability as The Gimp, only for vector drawing, is Inkscape. Raster and vector tools get you markedly different results, though there's a bit of overlap where you could use either type tool.

I have two artist daughters. One creates as she goes - what goes on the paper prompts further imagination. The other often starts a project already knowing just what she wants... she's described it as a camera & film situation. If you already have precise ideas all the way down to geographic details, the frustration you describe may be just from inexpert or clumsy toolhandling. That, you can remedy with practice. Improving the "film" as it were :-). If you can let your already-imagined scene morph a bit, then you'll maybe have more success with some of the random-generation methods described in CG tutorials. For example, you could generate continent shapes repeatedly, until whatever features you need show up, to some degree at least... a northern peninsula, some kind of bay - whatever your ideas call for. Some but not all of those randomness methods can be bent to your purposes by excising a blob here and reattaching it rotated over there. My mapping tends more toward daughter #1's way - the happy accidents and awkward bits that my imagined societies would have to work around, letting the land create the characters.

[Briena_Skysong]

I wouldn't mind learning either a hand-drawn look, or something akin to what it would look like if you were flying over the land. My man did a little rough map of Calraida, putting it how he sees it. All my attempts have been done like his, by hand, on paper. In all honesty, when it comes to any kind of art, Horses are my best subject. I can do small maps of a layout of my mother's property, and her house layout, but land is hard. ... I'm rambling... Back to the subject.

I'm not sure quite how to make the page on Gimp to enlarge so I can have a larger working point. I've tried the pixel sizing, but the page stays the same.

I've gone through a few tutorials, by RobA, and I found them helpful.

[jfrazierjr]

I wouldn't mind learning either a hand-drawn look, or something akin to what it would look like if you were flying over the land. My man did a little rough map of Calraida, putting it how he sees it. All my attempts have been done like his, by hand, on paper. In all honesty, when it comes to any kind of art, Horses are my best subject. I can do small maps of a layout of my mother's property, and her house layout, but land is hard. ... I'm rambling... Back to the subject.

For Handdrawn map, I would suggest your first try using some of the many brushes available here in the Mapping Elements forum(make sure to read and abide by any license rules if there are any!!). Just make sure that any brushes you make use of have the shading on the same side or the whole thing will look off.

I'm not sure quite how to make the page on Gimp to enlarge so I can have a larger working point. I've tried the pixel sizing, but the page stays the same.

in order to print, you should set the PPI in GIMP to 300+ ( to make for smooth printed results) and change the units in the new image dialog window to inches. Most printers will default to printing at 600 DPI, but if you set the printer to resize to fit paper, it will just work and look right.