Share your early maps!

[Kellerica]

Every now and again, I come across people both on and off these forums, who are expressing desperation over how many talented artists we have here, and how they feel like they can never even dream of reaching such a skill level at making maps. While I wholeheartedly agree that the talent we have over here can be overwhelming, I still feel like it is important to note that every single artist has had to start somewhere.

Now, I still don't think I can count myself among the most talented map-makers on this site, but even I can with absolute certainty say that I have come a long way.



Here are a couple of examples of my most early digital maps. The first one was the first completely digital map I tried making, way before I even joined the Guild, I think it was made somewhere around 2012.

The second one is almost as old, I drew it by hand, scanned it and did some truly dreadful PS work on it.

The third one was made in the early 2014. By this point, I had already found the Guild, downloaded some tutorials and started putting effort into actually learning my way around PS mapping. It still wouldn't be until 2015 when I was actually ready to post something on the forums. But this crop of a map seen here, is one of the many, many, many maps I worked on until that happened.



Now, just to give you an easy to way to see this back-to-back, this is where I find myself after 6 years of learning and practicing. This fan-map of Earthsea is this far my favorite work I've completed. I still have a ways to go, but I think we can all agree that there is some serious distance between that first map and this one.




In conclusion, I hope this can give some hope to people who think their maps looks like crap and they fear they will never get better: don't worry. Our first works usually sucked too.



If any of you others have any early works of yours saved somewhere, please post them to this thread if you feel like it! I seriously think it would do many people at the start of their journey good to see that many of us have pretty humble origins when it comes to maps and art in general. Cheers,

-Kell