Hi everyone ( just a newbie talking)

[PainPerdu]

I'm not exactly new here, but joined a year ago. One of my family members was already on it and I made an account as I had a slight interest in making maps back then. My interest has grown since then, and I'm now almost finished with a big A2 hand-drawn map. It has all been done using a HB pencil, a ruler and a...a... that thing that helps you make a perfect circle, sorry, forgot the name...
Anyway, I plan to re-trace everything with black fine liners. It is not going to be coloured in any way, the paper not being watercolour and too big to be scanned.
It is a fantasy map, for a novel I plan on writing. I believe this is my third attempt at a map-in the long span of six years.

To end this long useless speech I do a lot of watercolour drawings, a lot of sketching and am quite confident with my drawing skills. I am self-taught, never did any kind of study concerning art, not even in high school(I did not even go there ; I was home-schooled
Wish me luck. Thank you for reading!

P.S: If you find other bits of babbling scattered a bit everywhere: I'm just trying to achieve my five posts.

[DrWho42]

hello pearl! welcome to the guild! fantasy maps for novels i plan on writing is one of the main reasons i joined this community.

[PaperGriffin]

Hi Pearl and welcome to the guild. A circle drawing device could be anything; you'd be surprised how many compass roses happen to be the exact same size as the bottom of a coffee mug

[Tiana]

I was homeschooled too. I assume you mean the pokey thing with a pencil in it.

You can get extra large scanners, there are probably places that would let you use one for a fee, also it's possible to take a picture from up high, or scan a few different times at different parts and stitch it together, so don't give up hope on digitizing it. You could also color with pencil crayon, chalk, or pastel if you really wanted to get color on it without damaging the paper, but nothing wrong with a black and white map to start out with. Good luck with your novel.

[rdanhenry]

I was homeschooled too. I assume you mean the pokey thing with a pencil in it.

That one's called a compass*. It is a tool dating at least to the classical era (though without the cool pencil technology we are lucky enough to have).

* - Or you can call it specifically a "drawing compass" when context does not disambiguate between it and a magnetic compass.