Thank You

[Moombles]

Greetings all

I just wanted to thank everyone for making this such a fantastic resource. I'm working on a book at the moment and being directionally challenged thought it would be a good idea to draw a rough map to make sure I didn't get too confused when writing.

Not having an artistic bone in my body I decided to look for some free map design software and came across a trial version of Ortelius. Trying to figure out how to draw rivers, I stumbled across this site and my mind was blown! I spent a good few hours looking through the beautiful maps that members have created and a monster was born... I dusted off my photoshop and scanned in the outline of my map. Ten hours of confusion whilst trying to work out how to use PS (I've never really used it before), and much studying of the tutorials here I now have the beginnings of a rather nice looking map. Fortunately I have now worked out how to do the basics and so the creation process is beginning to speed up a little.

Having started off with wanting to create a basic map for my own reference I now feel inspired to create something of beauty that I can put up on my office wall to help me feel inspired in those times when the words are hard to get down.

I honestly can't say enough good things about this place - I had no idea that cartography was such a huge thing (although being a gamer and huge fan of fantasy I should really have had an inkling lol) but I can completely see why. I stumbled across this site looking for hints and tips but think I may be staying for a long time!

Looking forward to hanging out with you

Moombles

[Clercon]

That's the spirit
Welcome to the guild and put up your wip (work in progress) for all of us to see and we will gladly come with criticism.

[tilt]

hi moombles, welcome to the guild. As Clercon said, put up your map in a WIP thread to get help and critique while you work

[Redrobes]

Welcome, the dev or representative of Ortelius is a member here. Her name is Dr Jill and a search on the keyword will show up some posts and tutorials about the app. Its been a while since we have seen her post but maybe if you added a post to the end of some of those threads they might get a notification and respond.

Welcome.

[Moombles]

Thanks for the warm welcome every one, I don't think I'll be posting up my work for a while yet though as I'm just getting to grips with the software and techniques. I've spent about 8 hours today just fiddling with rivers and trying to work out some forest areas haha. Luckily I'm feeling patient at the moment! I was going to say that I'd post when I'm done but I guess that sort of defeats the purpose of a WIP thread

Redrobes, it was Dr Jill's posts that came up in my search when I found this site while looking for help with Ortelius so looks like I have her to thank for finding this forum

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!