Hey Everyone!! New to threads and to map making.

[JRG]

My name is Jacob, I'll be 25 around the end of November. Since I was a child I've always had a fascination with cartography and geography. I remember picking up the "Hobbit" when I was in 4th grade, the teacher told me it was too advanced as it was considered a 12th grade reading level. I have no idea why they had a high school reading level book in an elementary school library. I opened the book to skim through the text, and there it was, that damn map. I read that book in the 4th grade because of that map, and it was actually easier than I thought it would be. I didn't realize until I started reading that it was the prequel to the "Lord of The Rings." that realization made me love it all that much more. I have a hard on for any kind of map, political, scientific, elevation, hydrology, even blueprints, hand drawn maps are my wet dream. In school my favorite subjects were science and history, science just made sense to me, but I loved learning about the tectonic plates and prehistory, especially how the continents changed over time. In History my favorite time period was the colonial time period, the maps they drew were simply breath taking, and pretty accurate considering the lack of birds eye view in some areas. I've roughly drawn the united states before a few times to help others with geography, as most people don't have their bedroom walls covered in real world and fantasy maps. At least I did, before I joined the military. I went to school for welding so I've'a bit experience with drafting and reading blue prints. I've made rough sketches of game worlds like elder scrolls and Zelda to use as reference or to mark interesting features. Some of my favorite games are Paradox Interactive games, as most of their games are just a map with various filters and map modes. I grew up thinking map making was a lost art and there wasn't a real big demand for it. It wasn't until I played DnD and pathfinder that I realized that people still make maps and even pay to have maps made. I don't really care about making money, the idea that someone is taking a map that I created and making a living and breathing world out of it, or using the world that I created to adventure in that's enough compensation for me. I just wanna be able to world build like Tolkien that man was a genius, but I'm just starting out and in a little over my head. that's why I'm here, hoping I can learn a thing or two from you guys, gonna be tough but I'm willing to learn. Sorry for the word vomit just let my fingers fly.

[Kellerica]

I like your enthusiasm! You've definitely come to the right place, if you want to learn. When I found this place, I knew jacksh*t about digital art or cartography, and here I am some years later. I make maps mostly for my own pleasure, for that joy or worldbuilding, but recently I've had the pleasure of working with some authors to help visualise their story's world. This forum is a treasure tove of tutorials and helpful people, so be sure to take full advantage!

I'm glad to have you along for the ride, welcome to the Guild! I hope you'll share something with us soon.

[JRG]

Thanks for the warm welcome!! Ill try my best, starting out with hand drawn stuff right now. When I have some time off, Ill get a program and play around with it. Deciding the shape of the coastline and over all shape of the landmass is biggest issue I'm having at the moment. I'm my own worst critic I guess, it never looks "real" enough.

[DrWho42]

hello jacob! welcome to the guild! admittedly, tolkien and the hobbit were my first forays into fantasy.

[JRG]

I dabbled with creating a language in high school in an attempt escape from the Spanish classes that were forced on me. I had an alphabet I was pretty happy with at the time. In hind-sight, attempting to make a language out of Spanish, English, and Latin doesn't seem like a very good idea. It was around the time Skyrim was getting close to coming out and I was intrigued by the dragon language. Tolkien being a pretty big influence on me growing up, also contributed to the desire, I guess you could say, to create my own language as he had done so too. I ended up losing the alphabet and inevitably postponed the project.

[Okapi]

Hi Jacob!
I am new here too. I love the idea of making a new language, when I was at school I made a new alphabet. I insisted on using it in my geography lesson and ended up in detention!
Okapi

[JRG]

lol nice, I got banned from using the dragon language during English class. Me and another kid used to compete and try to write stories from the words Bethesda released.
probably wouldn't have been too bad but we would present these stories to the class.

[Tiana]

Hi, Jacob. There's a subreddit for 'conlangs', made up languages, though I don't see too much about them on here I'm sure there's some crossover in interest. I used to share stories in dwarf runes with a friend, and at a point in time we also had Aurebesh and Elvish memorized. Those were just cyphers of course. I've made some words up for one language, but not many.

[JRG]

very nice, I like ciphers as well. the puzzle books where you have to decode the ciphers were always super fun for me. For me the hardest part of creating the language was remembering what the words I wrote down meant, I guess practice helps with the remembering. i never made it to the grammar step as I wanted to have some words to play around with first.

[JRG]

also a little off topic, but anyone wouldn't happen to know where i can find examples of various wasteland and/or barren landscape depictions for hand drawn maps, perchance? Specifically like barren or wind-blasted bedrock land leading up to a coastal cliff.