Share your early maps!

[FranCobasGC]

I think this one was one of the firsts maps I remember I did... hehe

5D2C4920-6F5E-460B-B209-FBB15F27E2A1.jpeg

[Abu Lafia]

Oh, this is a cool idea for a thread Kell! Love to see the many miles everyone made to this day...

Going through heaps of really old rpg stuff not too long ago, i stumbled upon a map i did with a friend of mine in 6th or 7th grade in school for a fantasy world we were imagining. Scanned it immediately...ah the memories XD
Mapfrombackinthedays.jpg

Around 2006 i came across the idea to create maps digitally for the first time ... Ressources and knowhow were scarce to find around the web and the functioning of layers in gimp totally blew my mindback then
World_by_AbuLafia.jpg

First bigger and more ambitious project was the revamp of that older map into "Kharoun" in 2015 with the patient help and feedback of some wonderful Guildies...
Kharoun_lowres_by_AbuLafia.jpg

EDIT: Maybe it's time for another revamp soon...

[Kellerica]

Cool stuff, Abu! Thanks for contributing

That's actually not a bad idea, you know. Take the time to re-create an early map, maybe even one I've posted in this thread... Could be fun.

[J.Edward]

Cool stuff, Abu! Thanks for contributing

That's actually not a bad idea, you know. Take the time to re-create an early map, maybe even one I've posted in this thread... Could be fun.

Flips back to see what I shared....
That could be fun. Maybe posting them in a new thread...
or it may get hard to find things here. That said, i suppose it can go however you'd prefer, Kell, as you started this.
Which map will you choose? I could easily do a dungeon... but High Horn Keep calls to me, throw the ages.....

[Kellerica]

Flips back to see what I shared....
That could be fun. Maybe posting them in a new thread...
or it may get hard to find things here. That said, i suppose it can go however you'd prefer, Kell, as you started this.
Which map will you choose? I could easily do a dungeon... but High Horn Keep calls to me, throw the ages.....

If you want my vote, I'd love to see what you'd be able to do with High Horn Keep these days!

[J.Edward]

If you want my vote, I'd love to see what you'd be able to do with High Horn Keep these days!

I have already begun
It's ... different. I can't say if it still has the crazy feel of the first one.
But, it'll be interesting, at the least.
I hope some others will do this. I'd love to see what things people would choose, and how they'd redo it now.

[ThomasR]

High Horn Keep reminds me of a Ron Cobb concept for Conan the Barbarian

[Larb]

I have already begun
It's ... different. I can't say if it still has the crazy feel of the first one.
But, it'll be interesting, at the least.
I hope some others will do this. I'd love to see what things people would choose, and how they'd redo it now.

I am tempted to give something a try.

[Ramah]

Hey there,

Just seen this thread so I thought I'd join in.

Here is the very first map I did, other than doodles when I was a kid. It was a sketch in a notebook that I made to help me with the story I had begun to dream up. I would estimate this was around 27 years ago as I remember describing the story to a friend of mine at the time of an important occasion.

Vaniya Sketch.JPG

I worked on the story, on-and-off, for many years, first in notebooks, then an old IBM 8088xt computer I bought as a word processor, then on my first real pc - a 488 DX2 66! Phew. Then I kind of drifted from it.

Years pass and I finally pick it up again but I couldn't find the notebook. So I look into making a new map, digitally. At first I tried campaign cartographer, bought it and everything, but I didn't like the results. So I looked around for tutorials on how to use photoshop and found this place.
Through various tutorials and a bunch of great feedback I ended up with my first digital map:

Vaniya16.jpg

It was well received at the time but honestly, I can barely stand to look at it now. :S

I've obviously found the notebook since and it's kind of embarrassing how much I had forgotten and got wrong when I redrew the map. Although some of it I changed on purpose. I knew the original had 6 countries around the 'Mite' and reduced it to three in the update. And I knew there was a top to the map but I wanted the digital version to be bigger and expandable.

Anyway, now the original sketch is 'unofficial' and 'not canon' I guess when I think of my world. Seems weird.

[Kellerica]

Ooh, cool to see you chiming in, Ramah! Even though I was madly impressed by that first Vaniya map when I first saw it (it was in fact one of my my most early inspirations and in no small part responsible for really getting me into mapping!), I think it's clear how much your maps have improved since this one. It's been a blast seeing this world develop this far. And I do hope you'll eventually get back to that new map you started last year...