Old-fashioned cartographer with an interest in geology

[Christie Shadow]

Hi fellow cartographers,

I'm not a cartographer by trade; I'm just a humble cartophiliac. I write fantasy stories in my spare time and fantasy worlds needs maps, so I draw maps to help myself navigate these worlds. I draw city maps, topographical maps, "quest maps" etc.

I liked geography in school; geology in particular and I strive to make my maps realistic in the sense that I incorporate (and use) tectonic movements and volcanic activity to create the landscape that I need for my stories. I know that if I need glass work in that world, I need a source of fairly pure silica, thus sand with a quartz component, hence granite and limestone that is mostly found in orogenic mountain ranges - so I create orogenic mountain ranges. Whenever I need steppe or prairie, I make sure that the mountains realistically create a rain shadow etc. etc.

I like drawing and painting, so my maps are all drawn with pen and paper, and the ones that are coloured are coloured with water colours on acid-free paper. I'm still working on finding a scanner that can take A3-sized paper, but once I do I'll upload my first maps.

I'm looking forward to sharing the love of maps with you all.

Christie

[jbgibson]

Welcome to the guild - we look forward to seeing your work!

[tilt]

Welcome to the guild. Even without a A3 scanner you can post your maps here - either take a photograph of the map, or scan it in an A4 scanner and stich it together in Photoshop or GIMP (the latter being free).

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Christie Shadow! Very much looking forward to seeing your work. We do adore hand-drawn pieces here. If you are interested though, there are also some wonderful tutorials on hand here that can teach you the digital side of map creation.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh