My First Attempt

[Surveyor]

Hi, This is my first attempt at a map. The map is entirely fictional made with Gimp and InkScape.
Although this is a very basic map, I found it very difficult and this is the result of about 30 hours of work.
I would welcome criticism and in particular I have some questions that may well be answered somewhere else on this forum , but I have not yet found the answers to.
Is there a standard colour chart for elevation and features.
Is there a font for mapping symbols.
Is there some easy way to shade mountains (my attempt here is a filter/render/noise adaptation, not very scientific)
Is there a tutorial on how to to calculate scales on projections on maps

Cheers Surveyor

[hohum]

Nice map Surveyor. I don't know if there is a standard per se, but you could use a GIMP gradient from here.

I'm not sure about the mapping symbols right now.

Try the Swiss cartography tutorial here, there may be another on the guild that didn't come up right away.

If you figure out something about calculating scale let me know. I still can't figure it out.

[Ascension]

There are at least a dozen official color schemes that I know of but I don't use any of them (I make up my own that are close enough). In the Resources section RobA made a post about a year and a half back, maybe 2, about gradients and there are some links to the gradients/color scheme websites. I got a bunch from there. The symbol fonts I've never found so I would just scan them in from a Rand-McNally roadmap atlas. I never got around to doing it myself but if I ever do then I'll put em up for sure, but don't hold your breath cuz I don't do that style very often. There is a website somewhere out there with the symbols in .ai format for Illustrator but I don't know if they'll work in Inkscape. For mountains the technique is called shaded-relief and the easiest way to simulate the look is with a soft bevel. No idea about the scale thing, sorry.