Uh, hi.

[WiccanWanderer82]

As the title implies, introducing myself is way out of my comfort zone, but here goes.

[stares at screen for 15 minutes]

First of all, I'm a programmer, not an artist, so designing maps is very difficult for me. I'll work on a map for 20 minutes to an hour and then throw the whole thing out.

This is very inconvenient because I'm working on two stories that I need to make maps for.

AMA
WW82

[ThomasR]

Welcome WW82, you'll find many very good tutorials here to better your mapping skills

[ChickPea]

Hi WW82, and welcome. We're a friendly bunch, so I hope you'll feel comfortable enough to join in the discussions. I'd second Thomas's advice to head for the Tutorials area of the forum and try a couple (I'm assuming you're going for digital mapping, rather than hand-drawn). Just following through the steps of tutorial and producing a complete map at the end is a big boost to confidence levels, and you don't have to share it if you don't want to. You'll learn several techniques along the way that you can take further with your own maps.

If you need help with something specific, feel free to start a thread and ask some questions.

[WiccanWanderer82]

Thank you for the encouragement and warm welcome. Unfortunately, my issue has less to do with technical know-how, and more to do with crushing self-doubt and low tolerance for frustration. Maybe watching some Youtubes about architectural design will help.

[rdanhenry]

Welcome. Next time, instead of throwing out a map when you become dissatisfied, post it in the appropriate map type forum and you can get help on fixing it instead of just throwing it out, or at least figure out what went wrong to learn from your mistakes. Are you using software or traditional media to map? If you're using a graphics program, you should be able to Undo your way back to a "don't hate it yet" version when you hit the wall of "it's all so terrible". Physical maps are harder to fix, but you might be surprised at what can be salvaged.

Other eyes also may help you become more objective in your criticism. You may be being too hard on your own work.

[WiccanWanderer82]

Right now, my biggest issue is I don't know what I want before I start designing. I just start drawing rooms and eventually I just go, "NOPE!" and hit the big delete key. The videos I mentioned earlier are helping to change my process so that I will be less likely to do so.