Decided to finally show up and share my maps

[Gemmaker]

Hello!

Long time lurker, I've joined a couple years ago but haven't really said anything.

I've been working on a masterpiece of maps for my drow-centric campaign setting, and while I didn't intend to show this to the public at large, I think I've driven my friends crazy with endless map WIPs and talk of it.

So I need new test subjects

I'm still trying to get a hold of the UI and functionality of the site, but the maps are all ready to go on my google drive.

I am worried, however, about something and I can't seem to find an answer to my question in the FAQs and threads, apologies if it's stated somewhere and I missed it:
While I drew most of the maps myself (or traced some campaign setting maps), I'm using some art assets from elsewhere, mainly commissioned art, textures and city icons. While I was making maps just for me and friends for gaming I wasn't worried about it, but now that I want to show them here I'm worried about copyright and just good ethics.

I'm not worried about the commissioned art, since I paid the artist for the art, and will credit her and link to her DeviantArt page.
For the city icons, some of them are from games I bought, while some are mods that are publicly available at a forum (Civilization 3 if I remember right). The first is ok, the latter I figure if they're given away for free I can use them. There's however far too many to keep track of who exactly made which city, I could just link to the forum itself to give credit to "various authors".
For the map tracing, they're free to use maps or maps from campaign settings. I should be able to track down the artist for each one though since there's maybe a dozen or two total.
For textures, I'm afraid I lost track of where I found them in the first place. So I can't give credit and that worries me. I was using default photoshop textures but they were insufficient for my needs.


So I'm not 100% sure I can/should be posting my maps here. I was erring on the side of caution but now I have this overwhelming urge to share and get feedback, since my map are nothing like anything I've seen elsewhere on the internet in 15+ years of searching, although I want to explain where my style came from with an explanation to what inspired me.


So this is my hello, and also a question of should I proceed and if so how.

Also a lot of lovely maps out here! I hope I can do fellow map makers proud.

[Falconius]

Welcome out of the shadows I look forward to seeing some of your work.

As for the assets you should be fine for sharing your work here, especially if you acknowledge what or when something is being used.

[Kellerica]

Yeah, I'm not an expert on these matters, but I think it's fine to show work you've done that uses assets created by other people. As long as you say that these assets have been made by someone else and don't claim them as your own, and are not trying to sell the work you've created using them, I think you should be OK. I'm curious to see what you've made now!

Anyways, welcome to the Guild!

[Tiana]

It's for this reason I have only ever used assets that were released as commercially usable and no credit required. I can never keep track of the THOUSANDS of assets I've used... so I just made sure I would never have a problem digging into my downloaded archives of what came from where... but if you're not selling, you'll never get in trouble, simple as that. It's the tiniest crime that at worst will have an artist getting annoyed. (I've gotten annoyed twice, by people who obviously traced my artwork and obviously the commissioner never told them I was the original artist of the map they copied) So, you might be asked to give credit or edit that asset out if someone is annoyed, but if you're not selling your art, just showing it, all that happens is you have achieved an internet nemesis. You won't get sued. You could if you sold your art though.

Go ahead and share, we'd love to see what you've made.

[Gemmaker]

Here is the thread with my map(s). And a loooong history as to how it came about.
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=46397