Greetings Fellow Cartographers!

[Forty-Two]

ME
I only recently started on the road to cartography and so far it has been amazing. At the moment I'm only Hand Drawing Maps from the Lord of the Rings onto some parchment I have in my room. It's nothing much but it's a start. I want to start Writing a book but my puny brain can't write and imagine the fantasy world that I yearn for at the same time.

My Hopes
What I was hoping is that someone, anyone here can tell me EXACTLY what part of this amazing website to go to so that I can start my training as a cartographer. I want to be able to have a map of the fantasy world that I dream of so that I have something to look at while I write. I don't mind wether I do the map with a pen and parchment or with photoshop but I hope that someone here can help me get started!

I bid you farewell
- Forty-Two

[Korash]

Well, 42, if you want some guidance the Tutorial part of the Forum is where you need to go. Be warned however, once there you may have a hard time leaving... Lots of VERY neat stuff there. You will notice that there are a LOT of Tuts for both Photoshop and the Gimp. I would stick to the Photoshop ones to begin with if that is what you are familiar with, but after you get comfortable with those I would strongly suggest looking at some of the Gimp ones. Both the Gimp and Photoshop have similar abilities and a tut for one often (with a bit of translation) works in the other.

If you have problems with finding a style, I would suggest looking through the Finished Maps and Cartographers Choice forums for a map you like the look of. Sometimes there will be a WIP (Work In Progress) thread where the techniques used to create the map can be found. Speaking of the WIPs, that is also a good place to pick up on how certain effects are arrived at.

Have fun browsing and enjoy the Trip

And welcome to the Guild, the Mappiest Place on the Web.