Hello there, I'm French and I'm an aspiring writer. I'm a teacher and researcher (in classics and French literature) at university.
I suscribed here mostly to be able to follow more conveniently the topics of this great community. I'm fond of visiting the galeries of the members here and I'm amazed at all the tremendous maps one can find here.
Ever since I've read Tolkien's works as a child I've been working as a personal hobby on my fantasy universe but as of late I've decided it could be more productive to try and write some stories for publication (and not just personal pleasure) and stabilize the worldbuilding.
I'm seeking ways or softwares that could help me do to that in what regards the cartography, in order to work the geography and to edit it as a creator in a realistic way. I'm more interested in heightmaps and the ability to draw a map at several scales with precision and consistency than by the research of some kind of beauty of the map, for now. Of course I'm a map-lover and I don't say that I don't like this aspect in general, but it will be for later.
Let's say I've fantasized about a kind of "Google Earth" sandbox with layers where you could directly draw the coastlines, erect the heightmap, and so on, but I doubt it exists... I see that there are truly inspiring softwares for fantasy cartography out there and I guess they could help me better than the old pencil and paper way (even though it's still necessary) but I'm going to read more about them here to see if I should choose one. I'll read more topics here to see if I can find that.