Complete beginner (hide yourself !)

[Mornagest]

Hi all,

First post here, but I read many threads on the board for some days now. How great ! I found many advices, brushes and ideas to draw maps, and besides my natural lack of any artistic talent, I manage to use some features in GIMP now... so, I would like to thank the whole community to provide such resources to help people playing with draw softwares

In the real world, I'm a Belgian guy who lives in France for five years now. I actually stopped to work to look after our two childrens (well, they are still babies in fact !), and with a veeeerrrrry little bit of spare time, I decided to draw ONE map... the one we use in a roleplaying game based on the well-known Dungeons&Dragons. The fact is that the old map we were using was very blurred and pixelised, so it was almost unusable. So, there I am...

I finished the map. Well. I think I've finished it, as I reached the point I was looking for : more readability. I did not intend to make a masterpiece, of course...

The next (and last ?) step would be to draw the map of one of the most important cities that lies on our land... the exercise is quite different though, and I'm encountering some difficulties to get what I'm looking for.

So ! Enough babbling. I would just be pleased if you excuse my very poor English, as I do not practice it at all, except on reading...

And thank you once again for that wonderful board !

[- Max -]

Welcome to the Guild Mornagest and feel free to share your work

[jbgibson]

Welcome, Mornagest! Go ahead and post the city map that you are having trouble with, as a work-in-progress (WIP) thread - we are willing and ready to help anyone. Plus, I have a secret for you <whispering> we are all beginners, only in different specialties! </whisper> Cities can be hard to get right, or rather, to do well enough to satisfy oneself. You stare at it and stare at it, and wind up seeing only flaws, when other people may be saying "that's really pretty good!" Plus, cities just have so much *detail*. Do you have in mind a style that will let you generalize most of the city territory, filling in completely only what matters to your players?

What drawing software do you use?

[Mornagest]

@ Max : thank you ! I will post the map I already made, though I do not think it is beautiful ; only useful !

@ Jbgibson : thank you too ! Actually, I just made a sketch of the city map, and I'm struggling only to determine how detailed it must be to still be readable and why not eye-candy...

I'm only using GIMP for the moment, as I never tried Inkscape or anything else. I'm a Linux user so some softwares may not be usable on it, I think...




Thank you !